The Bride! Review – Less Than The Sum Of Its Parts

The Bride! is a big swing, but Maggie Gyllenhaal’s second directorial effort lacks spark.

You’d think Maggie Gyllenhaal’s second film as director, The Bride!, would be right up my alley. Feminist film noir Frankenstein riff? Lovers on the run with a side helping of resurrection? Hook it into my veins immediately, sir.

But no, and it’s a shame. There’s a lot to admire here, much of it production design, make up, and costuming. It’s a gorgeous film, pulsing with life and palpable rage. But it’s a mess; too long, too awkwardly paced, too eager to bash us over the head with its gender politics. Those are politics I agree with, mind you, but by the time Jessie Buckley’s Ida, the titular Bride, is screaming “Me too!” over and over again, you too might be fighting the temptation to yell “We get it!” back at the screen.

Buckley’s Ida is a gang moll raised from the grave by Annette Bening’s mad scientist, Dr. Euphronious, at the behest of Christian Bale’s movie-loving monster, Frank. He’s lonely and wants a mate to watch musicals with. We’re in 1930s Chicago, which looks great but doesn’t make much sense. Ida, even before she’s resurrected shock-haired and scarred, is possessed by the spirit of Frankenstein author Mary Shelley (Buckley again), which makes even less sense. Shelley wants to say all the things she couldn’t in her book, turning Ida into a kind of living sequel. If that’s Gyllenhaal’s goal too, it’s hard to say if she succeeds or not.

Plot direction is provided by Penélope Cruz and Peter Sarsgaard as a couple of cops on the trail of our central pair, but no urgency. Intriguing ideas are fired off scattershot and then discarded – the notion that Ida’s unquenchable rage at the patriarchy might inspire copycats chief among them. But ultimately The Bride! is incoherent. It’s a big swing, though, even if it is a miss, and that’s always admirable. Nonetheless, it’s a failed experiment.

The Bride! is in cinemas now.