Director: Maggie Gyllenhaal
Writer: Maggie Gyllenhaal, based on Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus by Mary Shelley
Cast: Jessie Buckley, Christian Bale, Annette Bening, Peter Sarsgaard, Penélope Cruz, Jake Gyllenhaal

Frankenstein and his monster have been having quite the moment in the past few months, with Guillermo del Toro’s film making waves through cinema and awards ceremonies. Now, the bride of Frankenstein is having her moment. Based loosely on the 1935 film and Mary Shelley’s novel, this female-focused film written and directed by Maggie Gyllenhaal puts the monster in second place to his ‘companion’ and could be considered an unofficial sequel of sorts to del Toro’s Frankenstein. Does The Bride! manage to stand on her own two (dead) feet, or is she a few limbs short of a sturdy body?

In 1930s Chicago, Ida (Buckley) is killed for knowing and saying too much about a crime boss and his activities. Meanwhile, Frankenstein’s monster (Bale), having taken on his creator’s name and going by ‘Frank’, tracks down Dr. Cornelia Euphronius (Bening), a scientist who has been working on reanimation, to implore her to make him a companion. Fascinated by Frank, she agrees, and they exhume Ida’s body for reanimation. On waking, she has forgotten who she was and instead goes by the simple name of the Bride. Together, Frank and the Bride travel cross-country causing all kinds of criminal mayhem, falling in love as they do so.

Hats off to Gyllenhaal for coming up with a fairly original setting for the Frank-Bride duo, as the criminal underbelly of America was something to behold back in the early twentieth century, particularly in cities such as Chicago and New York. Their Bonnie-and-Clyde brand of crime makes for quite a fun road trip and adds a twisted romance to proceedings. Alongside this is Frank’s apparent adoration of (or obsession for) spectacle, especially when it comes to the silver screen, something which the Bride encourages and even assists him in creating, putting her at the forefront of their escapades and ensuring she remains the focus of the film rather than her more well-known ‘spouse’. The film is also framed as a story that Shelley meant to write if it weren’t for her untimely death, and her look and voice are used as a sort-of narration that often interrupts the action. The story itself however lacks real motivation; while the adventures of Frank and the Bride are relatively enjoyable, nothing really happens for them, either together or individually. The dialogue also comes across as messy and verbose at times, with the Bride in particular prone to rambling monologues that eventually lose appeal and make the film sluggish in parts.

The make up and costume design is highly noteworthy. The prosthetics on Bale for the look of Frank are quite synonymous with what we expect the monster to look like according to classic Hollywood style, but Buckley’s make up for the Bride takes things further than we’ve seen before on film, particularly the classic style of Elsa Lanchester in 1936’s Bride of Frankenstein (in which Lancaster took on the dual roles of the Bride and Mary Shelley, much like Buckley does in this film). While she retains the wild white hair and skin pallor, the addition of black ‘vomit’ that stains her lips and face adds a unique feature that makes her immediately recognisable (we can probably expect a few Halloween costumes and cosplays in the near future). The costumes, very representative of the time, are unkempt and represent the delinquent style of the lead characters.

Although the Bride has her fair share of wordy dialogue that doesn’t always flow well, Jessie Buckley puts in a fantastic performance that looks quite exhausting. Her energy is consistently high, and she works double shifts as she flits between an American accent and an English one depending on if she is channelling Ida or Mary Shelley through the Bride. Christian Bale also gives a great portrayal of the monster, and though it’s not one of the most unique or top representations of all time, it works perfectly fine as a supporting character to Buckley’s Bride. Annette Bening is the perfect little mad scientist, the glint in her eye making her in many ways a more interesting character than if they’d had a version of Victor Frankenstein. Peter Sarsgaard and Penélope Cruz make for a good crime-fighting duo as a detective and his secretary who track down Frank and the Bride, with Cruz’s character in particular proving to be a ballsy yet believably ambitious woman who is very much deep in a man’s world.

The Bride! is a fun crime caper more than the gothic romance it is meant to be, but perhaps we see less of that due to still feeling the aftereffects of a more recent Frankenstein-based film that could not have been more gothic. Even so, it has fallen a little below expectations (the opening box office numbers aren’t looking particularly healthy) and lacks the cohesion we might hope for in a genuine gothic romance, particularly where Frankenstein’s monster and his Bride are concerned. There’s a lot to celebrate in this film, but it has left something to be desired, too.