The release of The Bride!, couldn’t have been planned any better for those eager to view more of Ms Buckley, this time again under the supervision of Maggie Gyllenhaal after the pair collaborated together on the latter’s 2021 directorial debut, The Lost Daughter.
In this modern reimagining of Mary Shelley’s now two-century-old horror tale and the various screen adaptations it inspired, Gyllenhaal serves us up an interesting homage to the cinema of the 1930s coupled with a multi-genre pastiche, blending comic book horror, body-shock, romance, comedy, musical, detective, road movie, with references plucked from sources as diverse as Shakespeare, Bonnie and Clyde, feminist girl punk, to the LGBTQ club scenes of the modern day.
It really is a cocktail of influences, a collage, a defiance of any normal categorisation, a real monster mash (yes, even that tune makes an appearance here). The action itself is set in the Chicago of the 1930s, although with rather more of the hallmarks of the roaring 20s with its ‘flapper girl’ fashion and jazz – fuelled nightlife as opposed to the Depression era that succeeded it.
Ida (Buckley), who we later learn is an escort, is in the company of the mafiosi of the city as Shelley (also played by Buckley) lashes out from purgatory to take possession of her contorted body, with utterances of a demon-like lasciviousness that could be lifted straight from Friedkin’s The Exorcist. In short order, she becomes the vector of the voiceless women whom the local mob boss has had murdered (their tongues have been removed quite literally to deprive them of their agency) before she herself meets with untimely demise.
But not for long. Into scene steps Frank (Christian Bale), who, as the traditional monster character, has been wandering the earth alone for over a century, and now, in search of companionship, seeks out the services of Dr. Euphronius (Annette Bening), a contrastingly sensible and progressive ‘ lady mad scientist’ compared to the established Victor Frankenstein version. It’s basically a feminist twist on the conventional tale we are all accustomed to. You’re getting the gist? They contrive to dig up a freshly buried corpse and reanimate for Frank a female companion.
With the flick of a switch and a volt or two, ‘The Bride’ is born with a personality shifting between British socialite and American gangster moll while sporting a punk-rock, fizzy- blonde hairdo and a literally and figuratively dirty mouth. And so off they go into their Bonnie and Clyde, star- crossed-lovers-type adventure, as Frank indulges in his obsession for the Fred Astaire-like film darling Ronnie Reed, who is played charmingly by the directors’ brother, while being pursued by detectives played by, you guessed it, her real-life husband Peter Sarsgaard and a criminally underused Penélope Cruz, who really does mesmerise in this as the overlooked sleuth in a male dominated profession.
It has been remarked elsewhere that the film is something of a jumbled mess; that it stumbles from one scene and one genre to another with little thought for the audience and that it is merely just a feminist rage project of sorts. I feel this is harsh on The Bride!, and in my mind, just like the monster creature it is based upon, its various and varied parts do come together, however clumsily at times, to make something genuinely entertaining.
Rather than being thoughtlessly cobbled together, it is a very satisfying and enjoyable, if indulgent, two-hour watch with some style and charm to it. In terms of its feminism, Shelley’s Frankenstein has always been a tale that was concerned with male dominance, ambition and female reproduction.
The film continues with those themes, albeit admittedly more on the nose, with barely disguised references to the MeToo movement featuring here in a childless setting. The Bride! calls attention to the common thread of sexual violence that existed both in the past and present and portrays instances of men overstepping their sexual boundaries with Buckley’s characters.
Credit must go to Gyllenhaal in this regard; this is not a film that shirks the realities women face nor is it an “all men be damned” feminist rant. It depicts the men of the film as remedies, as facilitating solutions to the problems encountered, not merely tarring the entire sex with one big brush or as a patriarchy.
Buckley is unbridled here, while Bale and company eat up the screen from start to finish; the film lands its social messages, but it never loses any of its sense of fun, and it most importantly at no point ever bored me, and that is becoming something of a rarity with such remakes and reinventions.
Do I sense a sequel?
The Bride! is in cinemas now.
The Bride!
Director: Maggie Gyllenhaal
Screenplay: Maggie Gyllenhaal
Cast: Jessie Buckley, Christian Bale, Annette Bening, Penélope Cruz, Peter Sarsgaard, Jake Gyllenhaal.
Genre: Horror/Romance
Cert: 15A
3 Stars
Shane McCormack