The Bride!

Jessie Buckley is having quite the year. First, there was her gut-wrenching performance in Hamnet and now an altogether different kind of gut-wrenching role in The Bride! A marked departure from her directorial debut, The Lost Daughter, Maggie Gyllenhaal’s sophomore effort is a feminist reimagining of Bride of Frankenstein. Whereas Elsa Lancaster’s original Bride did not have a voice, Buckley brings her to life in both voice and spirit.

Appearing to be in something akin to purgatory, Mary Shelley (Buckley) introduces the story. Cut to 1930s Chicago, where abused sex worker Ida (also played by Buckley) is tormented by both lecherous gangsters and Shelley’s voice in her head. Buckley is a marvel, acting through bodily contortions alone while switching seamlessly between Ida’s Chicagoan accent and Shelley’s Victorian cadence echoing through her head. After being killed by her abusers, Ida is resurrected by scientist Dr Euphronious (Annette Bening), who helps the 100-year-old Frankenstein’s Monster (Christian Bale), or “Frank” as he calls himself, find love.

Even in her undead state, Ida is assaulted by predatory men. One such incident leads to her and Frank going on the run, perceived as monsters to be hunted and removed from polite society. Gyllenhaal’s vision is admirably intersectional. This is not just a feminist tale, but one that shows how misogyny is intrinsically linked to other prejudices, namely ableism and stigmatisation of mental illness (Shelley’s voice in Ida’s head is arguably either a trauma response to abuse or a metaphor for the author’s brain cancer).

Bale’s monster is depicted in the Whale mould of sympathetic victim of societal prejudice. Though his Swiss accent falters, a scene in which he experiences a devastating rejection from someone he idolises shows just how great he can be when he swaps theatrics for human frailty. However, the formidable Buckley carries the film.

Initially a brooding horror with beautifully evocative, even Lynchian, motifs, the movie soon descends into farce that recalls the B-movie classics of Ed Wood. And therein lies the problem: it doesn’t quite know what it wants to be. What could have been a gothic period piece is let down by genre-hopping and a thematically jumbled narrative. It, therefore, works best when viewed as a subversive pastiche rather than a straight horror.

Defiantly feminist and boldly idiosyncratic, the feature is anchored by an awe-inspiring lead performance. With The Bride!, Buckley proves herself the character actress of our time.