Movie Review: The Bride!

3.5 stars out of 5

Jessie Buckley charmed the world accepting her Best Actress Oscar for Hamnet. And yet the fickle world has mostly turned a blind eye to Buckley’s lead turn in The Bride! (despite her playing more characters than Michael B. Jordan did in Sinners).

Maybe it didn’t help that The Bride! (a Bride of Frankenstein tale) came too quickly on the heels of Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein, a superior film in many regards.

One could even argue that this is a bad movie.

And yet…

There are flashes of brilliance. There were time when I was thinking, “Wait, is this actually a great movie?” I found it more compelling as it went along. I feel like writer/director Maggie Gyllenhaal may have a cult classic on her hands.

Let’s see if I can explain this story: Mary Shelley (Buckley), from beyond the grave, is itching to tell another story, and 1930s Chicago seems like the right time and place, where she possesses young boop-boop-bee-dooper Ida (also Buckley), who winds up dead. Enter Frank — wink wink — a.k.a. Christian Bale, he of the sewed-together forehead who shows up at the Windy City office of Dr. Annette Bening. He’s lonely and wants a girl, just like Jacob Elordi did in that other movie. After some convincing, the doc reanimates Ida, who is only worse for wear by the “hey you got a little… something on your lower cheek. No, you missed it. No, it’s still there.”

Then the film basically becomes undead Bonnie and Clyde on the run, with detectives Peter Sarsgaard (good to see him getting bigger roles again, oh wait he’s Mr. Maggie!) and Penélope Cruz hot on their trail, and Ida inspiring a proto-feminist revolt. (Somewhere even farther beyond the grave, Mary Shelley’s mom Mary Wollstonecraft is smiling.) In a nice touch, Frank is obsessed with musical film star Ronnie Reed a.k.a. Jake Gyllenhaal. Which is either corny or cool when it leads to a tip of the top hat to Young Frankenstein. It’s like Maggie is throwing everything against the wall and seeing what sticks.

Enough does stick, to at least catch this on streaming. It’s only a 2-hour, 6-minute commitment, not till death (or beyond) do you part.