Ever since she famously screamed in terror at the appearance of her apparent husband-to-be as her first act of consciousness, the Bride of Frankenstein has been a feminine icon of the horror genre. To some degree it was inevitable -she was one of the only female movie monsters of the classic era, and none that came after quite equaled her intensity of presence and her singular look, even with very little screen-time in the movie named for her. The Bride of Frankenstein does not appear in Mary Shelley’s novel, but that hasn’t stopped the character from being linked to Shelley -in the framing device of the 1935 movie, which posits the character was always intended to be part of the story and its moral theme; and in Maggie Gyllenhaal’s The Bride!, which suggests even more overtly the same.
Of course in one sense it is putting words in the mouth of Shelley, in another it is casting her as an avatar for Gyllenhaal herself and a kind of quasi-feminist statement more broadly. It is very artfully constructed, terribly evocative -though rather nebulous in its relationship to the story she actually is more set on telling, which envisions the tale of the Bride and Frankenstein’s monster in 1930s America via a pastiche of Bonnie and Clyde. Certainly a distinct approach to the subject matter it must be said, yet something of an incoherent one.
Shelley herself does appear throughout the story in a psychological, ghostly role, but its central figure is the titular Bride -both played by Jessie Buckley. Initially an escort in 1930s Chicago, killed by gangsters for an inebriated episode where she exposed the criminality of a mob boss, she is later reanimated by a mad scientist Dr. Euphronius (Annette Bening) for Frankenstein’s Monster -or “Frank” (Christian Bale), who has been wandering the world lonely since the death of his creator in 1818. Manipulating her into thinking she’s his Bride, his sensitivity and penchant for brutal violence meets her wild and raucous, rebellious side, and before long the two are set on a runaway crime spree with far-reaching effects in both symbolic impact and personal connection.
The movie sold itself a little bit on a riot girl underground aesthetic, which holds true for some of its visuals. Buckley’s look as the Bride, with her chalk-white complexion, lack of eyebrows, and marks from acid across her face and down her body that stand in for a series of tattoos, screams of 80s punk and goth subculture. Her fashion sense speaks a lot to this as well. But Gyllenhaal very firmly roots the movie in 1930s influences otherwise; in those Universal monster movies, gangster flicks, and even screwball comedies. The cinema of that era is clearly a fascination for Gyllenhaal, who casts her brother Jake as a popular movie star whom Frank is obsessed with emulating. We see snippets of several of these movies, mimicking sharply the detail of classic musicals and romances, with Frank's imagined self and his Bride inserted into them occasionally.
It is curious that as much as the movie opines focus on the Bride, Frank is often the more consistent point-of-view character, and it is Frank's desires that feel central to Gyllenhaal's lens more than the Bride. Though she is the more intense and flamboyant personality, she is often a subjective character, most of her actions filtered through how they relate to Frank, a male figure manipulating her -however pitiable he himself may be. It is to say the least a strange storytelling choice for a movie advertising as feminist, with ham-fisted dialogue in places servicing that theme. Even setting Frank and his intentions aside, his character is more developed and defined than hers, the Bride's backstory and inner conflict secondary to their reign of terror romance, which itself consists of just a handful of murders and one assertive speech at a grand party.
One that is delivered aptly by Buckley, it should be noted, who throws her all into the manic attitude and occasional fury of this character. It is perhaps the most eccentric performance she has yet given, a challenge she takes on enthusiastically though she strains against the script's more boisterous aspects. She can't help that the character is written as more Harley Quinn than Bride of Frankenstein, and those Girl Power attributes bluntly dropped without much backing them up substantively beyond shallow images of patriarchy are tough to play with legitimacy. There is nothing wrong in her performance, and in fact she plays to some beats incredibly well -the moments of dismay over killing people for instance- with excellent physicality, but it is stunted and rendered superficial by context. Bale's take on the Creature is curious -much more heavily derived from the Karloff interpretation than something like what Jacob Elordi recently brought to life. He plays the pathos well, yet his vocal performance tends sometimes towards the silly.
Simultaneous to the actions of the pair of them, the film also follows the detectives investigating their crimes, played by Penélope Cruz -the real deducing mind posing as a secretary because of sexism- and Peter Sarsgaard (Gyllenhaal's husband). It is an awkward corner of the film that feels designed as mere homage to His Girl Friday (name-dropped in the movie, despite releasing four years after it is set). It connects at one point with the backstory of the Bride in an unbelievable contrivance that still fails to showcase adequately who she really was and why she mattered independent of her Bride persona.
A persona that it should be emphasized she takes upon herself, ultimately refusing a name and self-identifying as Frankenstein's accessory. Yet another area where the feminist intents of the film are fraught, at odds with Gyllenhaal's interests in making the story a romance. For her vigor and rage with the system, and the visceral women's movement she inspires, the Bride defers to patriarchy fairly often -and so does the movie. She abides by conventional structures. And in Gyllenhaal's portrait of rampant misogyny and the culture of violence towards women, it is still a male figure (Frank) who saves the Bride from sexual assaults. This would not mean much if the movie wasn't so brazen in the tenets of its intended commentary; the struggle to reconcile these fiery gender politics with a rogue but classical love story hurts the film's efficacy in either direction. It can and has been done, but not here.
Gyllenhaal does at least make the film a compelling visual experience though -her 1930s America is not particularly realistic on several fronts, but one that does work to the film's favour is its extravagant Art Deco designs that especially suits the domains of Dr. Euphronius (and Bening in the mad scientist role is a notable highlight). As indicated in the film's construction, and elsewhere in the movie where tone and artifice are concerned, Gyllenhaal takes some pretty dramatic swings -an effort that is intriguing even if it doesn't always pan out coherently, such as in a few moments where the fourth wall unexpectedly comes down on either the Shelley expository interference or the imaginations of Frank and the Bride.
The film's ending is bewildering, some sloppy writing undercutting its attempt at grandiose sincerity in presenting a definitive statement on the story. It only reasserts The Bride!'s pervading confusion with what it wants to be. Several times I found myself thinking about other movies: The Shape of Water, which seems to nail the movie's romantic inclinations, Poor Things, which extols the kind of radical feminism it wishes to encapsulate, and Bonnie and Clyde, which it downright imitates in several scenes (including the big one). Perhaps the most disappointing thing about the film is how for its surface aesthetics -both visually and politically- it is a rather plain movie, and not in any way particularly punk. It still has its interesting moments and touches -a unique movie by measure, but The Bride I can't help feel deserved better.
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