The Bride! film review: Righteous rage
Packed with ideas and ambition, this fresh take on the Mary Shelley classic isn’t fully stitched together
Following hot on the heels of Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein reimagining, actress-turned-writer-director Maggie Gyllenhaal (The Lost Daughter) revives the monster’s bride; a discarded creation in Mary Shelley’s novel, the character was briefly given life in James Whale’s masterful 1935 comedy horror, Bride Of Frankenstein. Here, she’s the star of the show, exclamation mark and all, permitted to devour the whole damn film if she dares.
This angrily feminist, visually inventive spin on the story begins in 1930s Chicago where we meet Frankenstein’s monster ‘Frank’ (Christian Bale), who has spent more than a century alone. He approaches Annette Bening’s ‘mad scientist’ Dr Euphronius with a request for a companion, and together they unearth and reanimate the recently deceased Ida (Jessie Buckley) who for some reason has been possessed by Shelley herself. After a violent incident, the pair go on the run, leaving chaos and scandal in their wake, with Ida tapping into female wrath and becoming a folk hero.
There’s something of Heath Ledger’s Joker to Buckley’s splashy, uninhibited turn, and with its blend of musical numbers and anarchic antics the film also resembles the recent Joker: Folie À Deux, though it’s more entertaining than that. The make-up, costume and production design impress, and Buckley and Bale make compelling, Bonnie and Clyde-like antiheroes.
Sadly, the script might be fizzing with righteous rage but the film has the feel of an unrealised extravaganza; it’s an inconsistent, fitfully incoherent effort with more ideas and ambition than it knows what to do with, despite the plot’s relative simplicity. Meanwhile, the supporting characters seem tacked on, like the detective pursuing the reanimated lovers (Gyllenhaal’s husband Peter Sarsgaard), his astute secretary (Penélope Cruz), and Jake Gyllenhaal’s movie star. The Bride! is a sometimes seductive, sometimes frustrating watch, a star-stuffed feast that leaves you hungry.
The Bride! is in cinemas from Friday 6 March.