‘The Bride!’ Review: Jessie Buckley and Christian Bale Get Their Freak on in Maggie Gyllenhaal’s Bludgeoning Feminist Frankenstein Spin

Peter Sarsgaard, Penélope Cruz, Annette Bening and Jake Gyllenhaal also appear in this punk-rock exhumation of a character only briefly introduced in Mary Shelley’s novel. Jessie Buckley in 'The Bride!' Warner Bros./Courtesy Everett Collection Share on Facebook Share on X Google Preferred Share to Flipboard Show additional share options Share on LinkedIn Share on Pinterest Share on Reddit Share on Tumblr Share on Whats App Send an Email Print the Article Post a Comment In James Whale’s 1935 gothic horror masterpiece The Bride of Frankenstein, the title character played so indelibly by Elsa Lanchester screams and hisses but otherwise has no dialogue, and yet she has endured as an iconic movie-lore figure for almost a century. (That Marge Simpson electroshock skunk-stripe updo probably helped.) In Maggie Gyllenhaal’s aggressively punky reconsideration of the reanimated monster spouse, she becomes a laborious study guide for a Feminism 101 class, emphatically indicating points on sexual violence, consent, bodily autonomy and female power. She even yells “Me too!” late in the film. Related Stories Movies Christian Bale Weighs in on "Bold Choice" to Make a New 'American Psycho': "All the Best to 'Em" Movies Why 'The Bride!' Director Maggie Gyllenhaal Says Warner Bros. Asked Her to Cut Some Violence From Film: "It's Just Too Much" Gyllenhaal’s second feature as writer-director, following the more modestly scaled and psychologically layered The Lost Daughter, is certainly a big swing and The Bride! deserves credit for its ambition and its stylish visuals. But I found myself being pushed away by the movie even before Jessie Buckley bellows “Here comes the motherfucking bride!” at the end of an abrasively distancing prologue. I was already thinking wistfully of the sublime Madeline Kahn’s monster marriage in Young Frankenstein. The Bride! The Bottom Line Best left at the altar. Release date: Friday, March 6Cast: Jessie Buckley, Christian Bale, Peter Sarsgaard, Annette Bening, Jake Gyllenhaal, Penélope Cruz, John Magaro, Matthew Maher, Jeannie Berlin, Zlatko Burić, Louis Cancelmi, Julianne HoughDirector-screenwriter: Maggie Gyllenhaal Rated R, 2 hours 6 minutes Like Lanchester before her, Buckley plays both the novelist Mary Shelley and her creation, who this time never stops talking. She goes by a handful of names but settles on “The Bride.” Not “of Frankenstein,” in case you missed that point, but a personage in her own right, fully capable of expressing her own needs and defining her own boundaries, bolstered by tenacious agency where once she had none. Even when the title character is freshly reanimated and unable to recall who she was or how she died, her frequent refrain of “I would prefer not to” indicates clear ideas about what she does not want. Cackling with maniacal glee from the inky black-and-white gloom of the afterlife, Mary seethes tiresomely about a hellish eternity in which she can’t get a story out of her head — “Is it a ghost story, a horror story, or most frightening of all, a love story?” I sure couldn’t tell you. Cut to 1930s Chicago, where the woman eventually identified as Ida (Buckley) is among a crowd of revelers in a ritzy restaurant, her erratic behavior creating a spectacle, especially once she starts calling out the misdeeds of mob kingpin Lupino (Zlatko Burić) dining at the bar. (The character names I guess must be a nod from Gyllenhaal to studio system trailblazer Ida Lupino?) It’s unclear at first what Ida’s connection is with two men at the table, Clyde (John Magaro) and James (Matthew Maher), but when James starts trying to force-feed her an oyster — that sound you hear is clanging symbolism — she reacts like someone possessed. Which doesn’t help her when the two men whisk her out onto a stairwell to silence her. Gyllenhaal blurs the lines between Shelley and her creation as she declares she has a lot more to say, describing herself as disobedient, ungovernable. She leaves out unbearable. “Be warned, the sequel is coming!” she cries, like a portent. With the eeriness dialed up to maximum intensity, the author promises: “If Frankenstein frightened you, my next story will make you stand up and yell, ‘Help!’” Except it doesn’t. The implied terror is merely grating dialogue and a central performance so loud, fussy and mannered that it mutes any power to unsettle that the story might have had. Frank (Christian Bale), as the stapled scalp monster is addressed here, turns up at the scientific institute and home of Dr. Cornelia Euphronious (Annette Bening), who seems only mildly disconcerted to meet a man well over 100 years old. Having read her extensive writings on reinvigoration, Frank was not expecting a woman. She explains that she publishes as C. Euphronious: “It’s simpler.” That parallel to Shelley, who originally published Frankenstein anonymously at age 20, is one of many unsubtle dings about women being denied aut