THE BRIDE!
****
Directed by Maggie Gyllenhaal.
Starring Jessie Buckley, Christian Bale, Peter Sarsgaard.
Horror, US, 126 mins Certificate 15.
Released in Cinemas in the UK on 6th March by Warner Bros
For some reason if you Google THE BRIDE! and “box office”, you are swiftly confronted with a barrage of derogatory headlines about how many millions of dollars Warner Bros stands to lose at the box office. The usual suspects were quick to feast on its reportedly dead-on-arrival carcass. Unless you’re directly involved in funding or making a film, why would you give a crap how much money it has made in its opening week? Rest easy, your cinema ticket is still just the regular price.
We’ve been here many times before, and with similarly titled movies, to boot. Films with an exclamation mark in their title usually get a rough ride, notably Tim Burton’s marvellously heartless MARS ATTACKS!, the Zucker Brothers’ sorely underrated, often brilliant TOP SECRET! and Darren Aronofsky’s remarkable mother! Three tonally contrasting movies but all anarchic in ways that are relatively alien to mainstream Hollywood pictures at a certain budget level.
Like those films, Maggie Gyllenhaal’s second film as director is the kind of bold, messy, fascinating, indulgent, audacious studio release that comes along all too rarely. Perhaps films paying homage to James Whale’s immortal BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN (1935) are destined not to be blockbusters: just look at Franc Roddam’s THE BRIDE (no exclamation mark), starring Sting and Jennfier Beals from 1985.
This BRIDE, like the Whale film, opens with an onscreen appearance by Mary Shelley, played – as with Elsa Lanchester in the 1935 movie – by the same actress (Jessie Buckley) who portrays the titular role herself. This incarnation of Shelley talks directly to the camera to confess she didn’t get to write FRANKENSTEIN as she wanted, before an explicit statement of the movie’s intent: “Here comes the motherfucking Bride!” It’s 1936 Chicago and Buckley’s Ida is possessed by Shelley’s restless spirit at a party, her subsequent behaviour and revelations resulting in her swift demise courtesy of a prominent crime kingpin’s thugs. She is then resurrected, with distinctive stained skin, by mad scientist Dr. Euphronious (Annette Bening, splendidly channelling Ernest Thesiger) as a favour to the lonely “Frank” (Christian Bale), a man-made monster yearning for a romantic partner.
Frank and The Bride become lovers on the lam in an unforgiving, misogynistic Depression era U.S.A., escaping in the fantasy world of contemporary movies – notably those featuring a matinee idol played by Jake Gyllenhaal. They find antagonists familiar for anyone who has ever seen a FRANKENSTEIN movie (“There’s gonna be a mob – I’ve been through this before!”) alongside the kind of morally bankrupt predatory sleazebags that would later successfully run for American office.
Gyllenhaal’s script is at its best when it focuses on Frank and The Bride; a sub plot featuring crooked Detective-with-a-conscience Peter Sarsgaard and Penelope Cruz is not nearly as much fun as watching the two outcasts killing drunken would-be rapists, watching WHITE ZOMBIE in 3-D at the cinema (a deliberate but delightful anachronism), and dodging old-fashioned torch-bearing mobs. The reference points are charming, with everything from Violent Femmes, a YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN-inspired rendition of “Puttin’ On the Ritz” to name checks for Ida Lupino, Myrna Loy, Marlene Dietrich, Ginger Rogers and even good old QUEEN KONG. It’s visually striking, complimented by a gorgeous score by Hildur Guðnadóttir (who also composed the music for another recent, terrific “Box office bomb”, JOKER: FOILE A DEUX).
Recent Oscar-winner Buckley is typically committed and full-throttle in a multi-layered performance as an undead feminist crusader, giving a voice to the oppressed women of the city and sparking a revolution encapsulated by the T-shirt worthy “I’m not anyone’s bride!” Bale is genuinely likeable as her partner in head-crushing and, if the film could never be accused of subtlety (the phrase “Me too!” is shouted aloud at least twice), we live in a world where positive messages/representations need to be yelled to be heard amidst all the hate and (real) horror.
If humanity survives our current “Age of Stupid”, Maggie Gyllenhaal’s brave, adorably scrappy, ultimately heartfelt movie will be remembered as something quite special by those who can pry themselves away from the daily box office updates.
Steven West