The Bride! - A Post-Mortem
There was something about the marketing for The Bride!, Maggie Gyllenhaal’s latest feature film, that always felt a little off. The trailer promised a Gothic reimagining of Frankenstein’s electrified soulmate but the tagline ‘Here Comes The Mother Fucking Bride!’ gave me the ick.
It reminded me of Deadpool-esque humour. Relying on the cramming in of swearwords as a way to make teenagers laugh. Nothing delights a thirteen year old more than hearing Wolverine say ‘fuck’.
Nonetheless, the promise of Mary Shelly magic and Jessie Buckley’s undeniably enigmatic presence lured me to the cinema and, thankfully, there is actually a lot to like in The Bride!
With a script also written by Gyllenhaal, The Bride! takes us to 1930’s Chicago where a weathered looking Frankenstein (Christian Bale) asks Dr. Euphronius (Annette Bening) to bring an end to his crippling loneliness by building him his very own monster bride.
They happen upon the grave of Ida (Jessy Buckley), a woman murdered by low level members of the mafia, and bring her back to life so that she can be reborn as the Bride.
Unfortunately, Frank and the Bride’s union is anything but simple. Not only is Ida possessed by the ghost of Mary Shelly herself, determined to tell the story stuck inside of her, but her former association with the mafia leads the couple straight into chaos and calamity.
The Bride! is a melting pot of genre, style and theme, and while there are moments of brilliance where this works to prove Gyllenhaal’s strong directorial eye, overall, the film feels more messy than masterful.
The surrealist moments that tear at the seems of one narrative layer, allowing us to fall into another, were particularly enjoyable. Watching Bale’s version of Frankenstein’s monster being captivated by black and white movies, imagining himself as some kind of classic Hollywood triple threat, and then portraying him in a tuxedo and top-hat, dancing on the set of said film that exists in Gyllenhaal’s imagined world of The Bride! was charming.
Not only does it give us an idea and understanding of the kind of life Frank wishes he could live, one that, was he not a monster, might just be within his reach, but it also sets the audience up for the more wild and nutty versions of this split it narrative and genre focus later in the film.
Because of course there’s a dance number in the middle of a Bonny and Clyde-esque story, based on a film, which was based on an idea within a historically famous novel. See what I mean by melting pot?
These highlights within the narrative are visually pleasing and are reinforced by Bale and Buckley’s chemistry, as well as their strong performances, but it was difficult to enjoy them for very long when the pace of the film feels rushed in places but dragging in others.
Often, audiences would have benefited from being able to luxuriate in the 1930’s style and Gothic aesthetic within key scenes but it felt as if they were cut early to force in unnecessary scenes or character subplots.
While Frank and the Bride are making their way across the country, living a life of excess and scandal, they’re followed by detectives Jake Wiles (Peter Sarsgaard) and Myrna Malloy (Penelope Cruz).
While Cruz’s character Malloy fits nicely into the broader themes of women’s want for empowerment and feminine rage, Sarsgaard’s Wiles felt unnecessary and, honestly, just a way for Gyllenhaal to include her husband in the film.
Ida’s background could have easily been explored through Myrna alone, allowing for more time to be spent on Myrna’s character development, which is much more interesting than anything going on with Wiles, and a believable bond between the women could have been explained better and would have only strengthened some of Myrna’s decisions by the end of the narrative.
One concept within the film that still feels mishandled is the inclusion in Mary Shelly’s ghostly spirit within the narrative. It’s an interesting concept and the vision of Shelly’s haunting specter in the chalky shadows of the afterlife, the parallels between her and Ida, and Buckley’s performance as both are all brilliant.
Upon her being brought back from the dead, Shelly often breaks out through Ida’s mouth, forcing her way to the front of her consciousness, and these moments are fun to watch but they do not feel as consistent throughout the narrative as they should have been in order for the ending between Shelly and Ida to really pay off.
Shelly’s voice is clear in the first and final act but we lose her there for a while. It felt almost as if Gyllenhaal had forgotten about Shelly in the middle of the narrative and while, yes, this is where the Bride really begins to form her own identity beyond Ida, it felt as if Shelly would have had more to say in those big moments, especially considering the big themes of women’s rebellion.
In saying this, Buckley proves to really be in a league of her own, especially after having watched her bleed a little bit of her soul onto screen in Hamnet. She is beguiling as Ida, Shelly and indeed the Bride. Those quick changes in persona, accent and cadence are wonderful to watch, and take such control from Buckley as a performer, meaning she makes it look utterly effortless.
Gyllenhaal has clearly allowed her own imagination of Mary Shelly as a writer and woman to fully play with the themes from Frankenstein, as well as what Shelly might have wanted for her undeveloped characters and concepts, and the challenges of being a woman of such talent during the time she lived.
The Bride! is an ambitious film from Gyllenhaal and while the pacing and editing has its issues, there is nonetheless much to enjoy in the ways of Gothic mise-en-scene and tone, cinematography and performance.
Having left the cinema feeling somewhat bamboozled by the excess of all that Gyllenhaal attempts to cram into the runtime, I also felt mildly forlorn at all the potential that The Bride! struggles to meet; a strange mix of feeling too full and yet with room left for a dessert that never arrives.
Seeing it tomorrow. More intrigued than ever now.
I'm really enjoying your film reviews, whether I'm likely to watch or not. Please keep them coming.