This is what happens when you want to remake The Bride of Frankenstein, but you really want to remake Bonnie and Clyde … and are unsuccessful at both, sadly. But The Bride! sure was stylish! Of course, so was Toys.
To understand this film, you both have to understand history … and then forget it. Let me explain: this film begins with the ghost of Mary Shelley [yes, that Mary Shelley] speaking as a ghost. She’s bored or something and wants some action … so she possesses Ida (Jessie Buckley), a gangster moll, who proceeds to start blabbing about crime boss Frank Lupino. This causes Lupino’s thugs to need to act, which they don’t have to when a ranting Ida falls down stairs and dies.
So far, I’m with you. Sure, spirit of classic American writer takes over a 1930s Chicago floosy. Why not?
And while mad doctor Cornelia Euphonius (Annette Bening) is busy making mad science bringing Ida back to life, Frankenstein’s Monster (Christian Bale) shows up looking for a bride.
Do you understand the problem here?
This is a world in which both Mary Shelley AND her fictional creation are real. Whaaaaaa? Was she … taking dictation? Was she supplying a blueprint? Was Frankenstein or, The Modern Prometheus just stylized non-fiction? I do not understand.
And I am not to understand. What I do understand, however, is that “Frank” and The Bride! Spend the next two hours Bonnie & Clyde-ing it all over the American northeast. One of the big problems here is that there is talent everywhere (we should all have such problems, huh?). Christian Bale and Jessie Buckley are as electric a screen couple as one could hope for. Maggie Gyllenhaal knows her way around a camera. The peripheries are all loaded: the cinematography is quality; the makeup is striking (I dunno who decided to give The Bride! a permanent mascara smudge, but it totally works), and for the most part, this should be a likeable duo. When the two leave a nightclub early on, they are harassed by some punks until Frank curbstomps the pricks to death. This is one of those, “we the audience sympathize, but the authorities won’t see it that way” plot
points. This sets up the whole on-the-run mentality about the film, which should ahve made it fun.
And yet, very little in this film was genuinely fun. I smiled a bunch when Jake Gyllenhaal showed up as a movie star Frank admires … In retrospect, however, I only enjoyed this moment because of the trivia involved (Maggie Gyllenhaal directing her brother). Other than that, the role and scene could have been played by literally anybody and had the same effect,
The Bride! is a disappointment. This feels like when you think your team in pre-season might win the Super Bowl, but it is clear by Week 4 that they aren’t going to make the playoffs. I wish I liked this film more, but mostly I wish it were just a better film.
There once was a moll named Ida
With a ghostly soul deep inside-a
She hooked up with Frank
Like one huge pre-war prank
And now they both gotta go hide-a
Rated R, 126 Minutes
Director: Maggie Gyllenhaal
Writer: Maggie Gyllenhaal
Genre: Stylish mess
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: The makeup challenged?
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: “This talent is wasted on this film”
