The headlines today in the trades that track box office results will all tell you the same thing: The Bride! is a flop.
On a purely statistical analysis of dollars and cents, and how those two monetary agents apply to cinema, the numbers will agree. The Bride! was made with $90 million of Warner Brothers’ (while it’s still called that) money. In its opening weekend, it made just $7.3 million in North America and just $13.6 million worldwide. The chances of the film making back its production and marketing budget are somewhere between slim and none, and “slim” just died.
But, and this may seem like a crazy thought in an era where dumping on noble commercial failure is de rigeur, what if The Bride! is worth seeing anyway? What if we were to dismiss commerce and address the film on its own terms, as, you know, a film? Sure, by now many critics have weighed in, and the reviews are mixed and polarizing. Far too many addressed the film with a sort of pre-release glee at the prospect of a big-budget folly. While certainly, some of those criticisms have merit, I think it is far more valuable to address The Bride! as the bold, weird, and, at times, frustrating work of art that it is. Maggie Gyllenhaal’s second film (after The Lost Daughter, also with Buckley in the cast) as a director may well be a mess, but it’s often a fascinating one. Many films aim lower and hit their mark, but few will prove to be as memorable and worthy of discussion as Gyllenhaal’s take on Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein legacy.
It’s of no small note that we are barely into the first quarter of this year, and we have already received two radical reinventions of classic 19th-century literature based on the works of women, adapted by women, and directed by women. The first is, of course, Emerald Fennell’s heated, some would say, “overheated,” iteration of “Wuthering Heights,” starring Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi. While that film met with similarly mixed reviews, it will ultimately prove to be profitable. Gyllenhaal’s The Bride! most certainly won’t.
I liked much about “Wuthering Heights.” The willingness to avoid the stodgy and embrace the perverse was admirable. In the end, though, Fennell’s film fell short of the sort of nerve that it promised. It was as if the gifted director went only 2/3 of the way there (“there” meaning true transgression), and then pulled back to the slightly more conventional. For better and sometimes worse, Gyllenhaal’s film is a 4/3s take on its source material. Where “Wuthering Heights” promised a batshit take on a classic, but only partially delivered, The Bride! revels in over-delivery.
We begin, in earnest, in 1936 Chicago (because why the hell not?) with the great Jessie Buckley playing “Ida,” an escort at a nightclub surrounded by, and indulging in, depravity. It’s no spoiler to reveal that Ida comes to a violent end, only to be reanimated by a not-so-mad scientist, prodded by the original Frankenstein monster (Christian Bale). When we first meet the monster of Shelley lore, we are presented with a lonely, ageless man of well over one hundred years of age, who wants nothing more than a companion to end his solitude.
Enter Doctor C. Euphronious, played by the always grand Annette Bening. Unlike Doctor Frankenstein, Euphronious is no mad scientist. She is a comparably sane, but ambitious, inventor open to the idea of scientific discovery and advancement. Willing to put aside her ethical reservations, Euphronious agrees to bring back to life a mate for Frankenstein’s monster, or “Frank,” as Ida’s reanimated corpse often refers to him.
Once brought back to life by science and electricity, Ida must reckon with her new world. Her rebirth is guttural and ghastly. Ida expels a black substance that leaves a stain on the right side of her face (perfectly aligned with the turn-up of Buckley’s soon-to-be-patented smirk), looking like nothing less than a Rorschach tattoo. As Ida comes back into being, her memory of her full self is lost, but being a being who was not all that well-hinged to begin with, her return to the living is eccentric and promises volatility. Buckley drains endless humor from consistently quoting from Melville’s lead character Bartleby, of Bartleby, the Scrivener, by saying, “I would prefer not to,” when presented with an option not to her liking. Funnier still is the moment when Buckley’s Ida decides she doesn’t want to stay overnight in Euphronious’ lab, stating, “I don’t think I live here.”
For those who foolishly think that Buckley acted at an “11” in Chloe Zhao’s Hamnet, ignoring the first half of that film and seemingly thinking heart-wrenching grief should be portrayed in a quieter, more stately fashion, The Bride! may well prove to be kryptonite. Because here, in Gyllenhaal’s film, Buckley is truly, and gloriously, dialed all the way up. It’s a fearless performance that conjures up the thought of what Joker: Folie a’ Deux might have been were it better executed. Buckley’s Ida even has a more than a passing resemblance to Lady Gaga, what with her shock of platinum white hair and gothic glamour bordering on the grotesque. We get to hear Buckley dementedly sing and dance in The Bride!, and while many will likely cringe and reject her performance, those who lean in will do so with no small amount of awe. The question of who is this generation’s greatest actress has centered around the relentlessly remarkable Emma Stone, but I’m here to tell you, there is a lass from Ireland who’d like to have a word—a strong one.
From the moment Ida returns to the (semi) living, Gyllenhaal’s film becomes a pastiche of horror, noir, gangster film, and musical, all inspired by the era in which it takes place. As messy and overstuffed as the film’s screenplay (written by Gyllenhaal) may be, it is often exhilarating. The filmmaker turns the story of Frankenstein and his bride into a feminist howl, replete with a Bonnie & Clyde motif. Buckley and Bale become monsters on the run, tracked by vile men in a world that won’t let its pure-hearted protagonists be.
Even a half-decent man, like Peter Sarsgaard’s half of a detective team (along with a droll Penelope Cruz), is something of a fugazi. In Gyllenhaal’s world, Sargsgard’s Jake is the lesser gumshoe to Cruz’s Myrna Malloy, who is clearly the superior sleuth, but who must present as Jake’s secretary to gain entry into the world of male investigators. It’s also notable that Bening’s Doctor Euphronious authors under the name of C. Euphronious to avoid dismissal of her research due to her gender. Throughout the film, there is a continuous refrain regarding the silencing of women. Compared to one gangster’s chosen method, the ignominies that Euphronious and Malloy face are comparatively quaint.
For all of The Bride!’s feminism, it should be mentioned that this is a darkly funny film. There’s a self-awareness that may not be to everyone’s taste, but was certainly to mine, evident throughout the film. There’s an absurdity to the musical numbers, where Frank sees himself in a thespian named Ronnie Reed (Jake Gyllenhaal in a tasty cameo) that lands with a knowing thump. There’s something to be said for a director who makes a horror dramedy/musical that is brave/nutty enough to use “Putting on the Ritz,” and thereby call up memories of Mel Brooks’ classic spoof Young Frankenstein. What exactly that something is, I do not know, but once I discover the word for it, I intend to use it often.
Not every splatter of paint Gyllenhaal throws at her canvas works. The film flags a bit in its latter portion, and the use of Monster Mash over the credits is too cute by half, but much of what is here in The Bride! is choice, if not for everyone. For me, there is more than enough here to recommend the film. But, you know, proceed with caution. Mary Shelley may turn up repeatedly in the film (played by Buckley), but this isn’t her Frankenstein. It’s Maggie Gyllenhaal’s.
You’ve been warned.
