The Bride! Review

 

Christian Bale plays Frankenstein’s monster (who goes by Frank) and enlists the help of a mad scientist (played by Annette Bening) to bring back a dead 1930s party girl (played by Jessie Buckley), and the two go on a Bonnie and Clyde-inspired romance/cross-country crime spree.

The big scene stealer in this movie is Jessie Buckley as The Bride; her performance is very manic and scenery-chewing, but she’s able to switch between many different emotions and characteristics almost on a dime and is very captivating to watch.

Christian Bale as Frank is definitely the heart of the movie. Bale brings a lot of sympathy and pathos to the character, not to mention does a great job at recreating all the Frankenstein hallmarks (being big, shambling, feeling separated and lonely from society).

The film was directed by Maggie Gyllenhaal, and she ironically brought a fun, “electric” energy to the film with a lot of creative and out-of-the-box directing decisions that definitely made the movie feel unique.

Jake Gyllenhaal plays a Fred Astaire type movie star, and not only does Gyllenhaal nail the accent, acting style, and type of singing in 1930s musicals, but the other Gyllenhaal’s directing at re-creating those films in camera angles, blocking, and shooting the choreographed dance sequences feels very authentic.

This movie has several dance sequences, and Maggie Gyllenhaal definitely brought a quirky direction to them that felt very inspired and unique.

As previously stated, the film takes place in 1930, and not only did the set designers, costume department, and special effects team do a fantastic job at re-creating the time period.

I also really enjoyed Annette Bening as Dr. Euphronious; she wasn’t in the movie a whole lot, but she does have a fun screen presence, and her more logical, down-to-earth character was a good disposition to the more over-the-top feel of the film.

Peter Sarsgaard and Penelope Cruz play detectives tracking Frank and The Bride, and both actors do a solid job and have a fun dynamic, although they’re also involved in this mafia subplot that really isn’t shown or affected much outside of their conversations about it.

At the very beginning of the film, a story element is introduced that I liked the style of and the performance attached. But it is kind of confusing and never really addressed, not to mention it raises several continuity questions about this reality that are never really acknowledged.

This film also suffers from having several plot lines that sound important but really don’t go anywhere and don’t amount to much. Like, the movie makes a big deal about how the Bride is inspiring this revolution amongst women, but they never really do much with it outside of a mid-credit scene, like you could’ve cut that from the movie and it wouldn’t have affected the story much.

The pacing and storytelling, especially in the second half, get rather random, like there’s no real cohesive buildup; things just feel like they happen randomly one after another, not to mention one least favorite movie cliché where characters have to travel a long distance to achieve something, but the way the film is edited It feels like it took them like five minutes to get there, so it makes you think, "How fast were they driving?" not to mention other forces that would make it very difficult for them to get around, but our conveniently skipped over.

The film also tries to have this very deep social message, but it’s nothing new, and they hit you over the head with it like a frying pan, so even if you agree with it, it’s still too much and could of been more nuanced.

There are also hints that when Frank and the Bride are together, they somehow can affect reality around them, but again, it is never really acknowledged or delved into, and characters who were seeing this who should have some kind of reaction don’t do anything, which felt very confusing, like, "So is this happening, or is this in people‘s heads? Like, what’s going on?"

The writing was up and down; it was good for the most part, but certain parts towards the end felt like the characters had a longer monologue that got edited down, so their dialogue comes off more splintered and jarring.

Strangely, I caught at least three separate Young Frankenstein references in the film, which, hey, it’s a great movie, so I don’t mind, but it was certainly unexpected.

The Bride! takes a lot of big creative swings, and while most of the 1930s send-ups I enjoy, and I respect Maggie Gyllenhaal’s gumption and creativity in taking those swings, the final product feels like a random mess of ideas and storylines that were stitched together like Frank’s body lol. But the performances were solid throughout and kept me engaged. I give it a supportive two and a half stars ⭐️⭐️💫 it was a nice effort, but could’ve used a stronger cohesion.