By John Corrado
Maggie Gyllenhaal’s The Bride!, the actress-turned-filmmaker’s followup to her Oscar-nominated directorial debut The Lost Daughter, is an ambitious genre mashup of horror movie, detective picture, musical, and feminist revisionism.
Setting her film in the 1930s, Gyllenhaal uses Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein as a blueprint for an entirely new reimagining of the story, crafting a loose adaptation that is also in conversation with the source material.
This version of Frankenstein’s monster is Frank (Christian Bale), a stitched together creation from 1819, who has defied science and survived all the way until 1936. Frank is a lonely man, spending his days going the movies on his own, and trying to hide his scars in order to fit in. We first meet him arriving at the Chicago laboratory of Dr. Cornelia Euphronious (Annette Bening), an expert in reanimation, and requesting that she make him a bride.
The Bride is the exhumed body of Ida (Jessie Buckley), a young woman with connections to the mob, who convenes with the deceased spirit of Frankenstein author Mary Shelley (also played by Buckley in black-and-white fantasy scenes). Frank and The Bride escape together and end up on a road trip crime spree, pursued by detective Jake Wiles (Peter Sarsgaard) and his secretary Myrna Molloy (Penélope Cruz).
If Gyllenhaal is drawing inspiration from James Whale’s classic 1931 version of Frankenstein starring Boris Karloff, and especially its 1935 sequel Bride of Frankenstein, she is also crafting elaborate homage to the groundbreaking 1967 crime film Bonnie and Clyde. In addition to mixing monster movie and film noir, Gyllenhaal also finds time to stage old school musical numbers, with Bale’s Frank idolizing a musical movie star named Ronnie Reed (played by Maggie’s own brother Jake Gyllenhaal).
As such, Gyllenhaal’s film is certainly not lacking in terms of ambition. She even pays tribute to the Mel Brooks spoof Young Frankenstein, with a few references to that comedic classic worked in for good measure. On a deeper thematic level, Gyllenhaal’s original screenplay explores bodily autonomy, with Buckley’s Bride discovering her own agency; there’s a reason this is not The Bride of Frankenstein and just The Bride!, exclamation mark added for good measure, in case there was any fear of subtlety.
Bale’s monster is much more verbal than previous iterations, differing greatly from Karloff’s groaning or Jacob Elordi’s tragic, sympathetic portrayal in Guillermo Del Toro’s Frankenstein just last year. Aided by impressive makeup that makes his skin appear stapled closed, Bale is able to bring an intensity and humanity to his version. But the main attraction is unsurprisingly Buckley, offering more proof that she is one of our most compelling actresses following her Oscar win for Hamnet. Buckley’s wild, unhinged performance has her switching between British and American accents, turning her Bride into a feminist anti-hero that is both manic and tragic.
Buckley’s Bride is somewhere between Joker and Harley Quinn. On that note, The Bride! is sure to draw comparisons to Joker: Folie a Deux, another quasi-musical genre mashup from Warner Bros. that also bombed at the box office. It even shares a cinematographer in Lawrence Sher, and a composer in Hildur Guðnadóttir. Sher’s cinematography looks great, highlighting the impressive production design and Sandy Powell’s period costumes.
Does it all work? Not entirely. Gyllenhaal’s film introduces some story threads and themes that feel underdeveloped, and it constantly feels at risk of going off the rails. It can feel tonally uneven, and peters out slightly by the end. But The Bride! is rarely boring, even if it works somewhat better as camp, and it’s easy to admire a bold studio swing such as this one.
Film Rating: ★★½ (out of 4)
Bonus Features (4K Ultra HD):
The 4K disc includes four featurettes. A digital copy code is also included in the package, which ships with a matte slipcover.
• Stitching Together The Bride! (8 minutes, 16 seconds): Maggie Gyllenhaal talks about her approach to telling this story and wanting to explore the origins of the Bride of Frankenstein as a character, while the cast talks about working on the film.
• Designing the Look (8 minutes, 46 seconds): Explores the look of the film, from Bale’s prosthetics and scars to Sandy Powell’s costumes, which are described as having a “punk” element while still being true to the 1930s.
• The Muse and the Reimagined Monster (8 minutes, 7 seconds): Bale and Buckley talk about their approach to playing these characters, and finding the humanity underneath the monsters.
• The Bride! Party (6 minutes, 17 seconds): The cast members all offer praise for each other, and talk about getting to collaborate together.
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