An art teacher once told me that you can only blend so many colors before getting mud.
Writer/director Maggie Gyllenhaal has blended a lot of colors in THE BRIDE!, her revisionist take on Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein; or The Modern Prometheus. Gyllenhaal has blended horror, gore, Gothic romance, pathos, a character study, a political allegory, and parts homage and satire. There’s even a spoof of music videos and dozens of nods to other movies in this new film as well. It’s a lot of styles, too many, and lots of shifts in tone too. It all renders this two-hour and six-minute movie into quite a hodgepodge, one minute convincing, the next confounding. And it all ends up coming very close to the mud my teacher warned about.
Gyllenhaal is nothing if not ambitious in wanting to bite off so much to chew in her sophomore directorial effort. (Her first feature effort was the tightly constructed THE LOST DAUGHTER.) Right off the bat, she brazenly introduces star Jessie Buckley playing Shelley, talking directly to camera in shadowy black and white cinematography, and grousing about not being allowed by the patriarchal society of the 19th century to write about what she really wanted to – namely women. But back in 1818, monstrous men kept women down and often out, and it’s clear that Gyllenhaal will be making up for such offenses here in more ways than one.
The film then picks up in earnest in Chicago of the 1930s where Gyllenhaal’s introduces us to her two main characters. One is Ida (Jessie Buckley), an outspoken gangster’s moll who starts trashing the local crime boss within earshot at a crowded restaurant. Not taking kindly to her informed putdowns, the mobster has two of his goons toss her down a staircase to a violent death. It’s the first obvious homage to another film, 1992’s DEATH BECOMES HER, but no matter. Gyllenhaal stages it brilliantly and it’s most unsettling.
Next, the story introduces Frank (Christian Bale), the creature of Victor Frankenstein’s who has lived almost 100 years and has grown achingly lonesome in all those years. He shows up at the door of progressive scientist Dr. Cornelia Euphronious to beg her to use her restorative science to bring a corpse bride back to life so that she may be his constant companion. Taking pity on the stitched together lug, the doctor aids him in digging up Ida’s recently buried body, and a few jolts of electricity later, the young woman is sitting up and coughing up black bile. Ida, whose flapper’s bob gets more heightened with each minute, echoes the ‘do of Elsa Lancaster in the 1935 film THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN, and her relationship with Frank becomes sweet and moving as they try to figure each other out.
The romantic Frank, poignantly played throughout by a committed Bale, introduces his new companion to the idea of courtship via the movie theater where he fancies the rom-coms starring matinee idol Ronnie Reed (played by Jake, Maggie’s brother). It’s a bit cheeky, but still good. Unfortunately, too much plot will soon kick in, along with too many tonal shifts, and some outright silliness that feels immature. In addition to blatant spoofs of YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN, THRILLER, and even 13 GOING ON 30, Gyllenhaal also starts to spell out every political point. The film starts getting too belligerent, when it was doing so well being poignant.
The couple ends up on the lam, and if this became a riff on “Bonnie and Clyde” and how monsters can become celebrities, that would have been sublime. Unfortunately. the film introduces its B story concerning the corrupt cop (Peter Sarsgaard) hot on her trail along with his all-knowing “Girl Friday” Myrna Mallow (Penelope Cruz). Soon, the moralizing becomes on-the-nose, the dialogue starts to bellow, and the violence becomes excessive. By the time the big chase starts crisscrossing the country, swerving back and forth between comedy and tragedy, employing shoot-outs, Easter eggs, parodies, “Me Too” dialogue, and overly art-directed production design, the sweet little love story gets lost.
Alas, one thing mars THE BRIDE! inexplicably as well, though Gyllenhaal likely couldn’t have done anything about it. Opening so close after the awards season hit FRANKENSTEIN does this film no favors. Writer and director Guillermo del Toro kept closer to Shelley too so one can’t help but start making comparisons between the two films in reel time.
I do applaud Gyllenhaal for giving this her all, but being an expert artist means knowing when to push the canvas farther, as well as when to put the brush down. Suffice it to say, I liked a lot of this film’s parts, but less so the sum of them.
