A new Frankenstein has stomped its way into theaters: writer/director Maggie Gyllenhaal's The Bride!
Through Gyllenhaal's zippy direction, the Depression-era, Chicago-sprung/New York-bound story spins Mary Shelley's concept back to James Whales' classic sequel, with the filmmaker's Dark Knight costar, Christian Bale, playing the bolted Monster, aka Frank, who asks a revered scientist, Annette Bening's Pretorius surrogate, Dr. Ephronious, to bestow him Jessie Buckley's not-so-hideous Ida, aka Pretty Penny Rogers, aka the Bride! (BTW: Buckley also portrays Shelley, in a nice nod to Elsa Lanchester's famous double whammy; only in this case, the author's channeled narration intersects throughout, with fourth-wall-breaking audacity and indignant, parallel-plane pomposity.)
Frank and the Bride! embark on a Natural Born Killers-ish adventure and down the Kerouac-esque road meet Jake Gyllenhaal's Fred Astaire-molded movie idol, Ronnie Reed, who Frank taps as his template for better living, while detectives, Peter Sarsgaard's Jake Wiles and Penelope Cruz's Myrna Mallow, track the revived antiheroes, since the duo does perform certain unwitting (ahem) travesties that warrant investigation.
On the surface, the movie is a creature-ized Bonnie and Clyde, with Bale's Frank being (ironically) Joker-esque at times and Buckley's Ida representing Harley Quinn, though with a strand of Metropolis' Maria-Robotrix whenever she hits full throttle. The idea doesn't promote waywardness as much as it does pulpy, noir-ish, inner probing (with dandy, dance sequences sewn in, to stir the showy stew further). And as for the titular character, there's a speak-thy-mind, steampunk, feminist vibe. Ida even achieves enough notoriety to inspire an impetuous "Brain Attack" movement that's ripped straight from Star Trek's "Amok Time."
On another level, The Bride! mirrors Yorgos Lanthimos' Poor Things (that chaotic cross of Frankenstein and Candide), and in a more obvious yet outlandish way (for those who have the decency to remember and respect it), Franc Roddam's underrated The Bride, where a feminist motif manifests, though with the Monster winning the favor of his female counterpart, hinting at adventures yet to come, even if much more subdued than what Gyllenhaal renders.
Based on the above, one may deduce that The Bride! isn't always as out-of-the box as some proclaim, but in the inexhaustible string of Frankenstein adaptations, including Guillermo del Toro's recent epic, that's okay. It's the execution that counts, with this one being irreverent, sorrowful and amusing, designed for evident, cult status, ala Frank Miller's The Spirit: a direction that sometimes wins and sometimes (as with the latter) loses.
Keep in mind, a genuine cult film starts small, gets overlooked, only later to rise high in the public eye. It's not made to ignite a pop-cultural sensation. That sort of thing can (and should) never be forced. The Bride!, as such, comes installed with big-time, publicized splash, anticipated and reviewed by mainstream critics and fans alike. The question is, how long will its "novelty" last?
The answer: a long, long time. It's Frankenstein, pure and simple, and it just so happens to be (in my estimation) engaging as hell. Some will love it; some may bypass it, with others misunderstanding it altogether, but like Shelley's novel and its many offspring, it'll always remain on the cinematic slab, inviting audiences' dissection. If that's not a foolproof guarantee for eternal success, shoot, what is?
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