#26: THE BRIDE!

STARRING: Jessie Buckley, Christian Bale, Peter Sarsgaard, Annette Bening, Jake Gyllenhaal and Penelope Cruz. Written and directed by Maggie Gyllenhaal. $90 million. Running time 126 minutes.

I think the tagline of the poster perfectly sums up the film, 'Here Comes The Motherfucking Bride!'

This is raw, rage-infused, manic, furious, relentless and perfectly encapsulates the notion of the original 'Punk' movement to a T, or 'P' if you'd prefer.

The plot set in America in the 1930s sees Ida (Jessie Buckley), a good time girl possessed by the spirit of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley during a drunken night out in a fancy restaurant. There she loudly spills the beans on the activities of a vicious crime boss, Lupino (Zlatko Buric) who promptly orders her execution, which her boyfriend Lupino's sidekick James (Matthew Maher) carries out by punching her down a staircase where she breaks her neck and dies. Meanwhile, 'The Monster' (Christian Bale) arrives in New York desperate for Dr. Cornelia Euphronious (Annette Bening) to help him create a bride to break his soul destroying loneliness. She reluctantly agrees and together they dig up the corpse of Ida, pump a mysterious gunk into her and then zap her with the electric output of the entire city. Ida awakens revived, still possessed by Mary but with no memory of her past life and together the two monsters runaway on a cross-country inadvertent murder spree pursued by Detective Jake Wiles (Peter Sarsgaard) and his assistant Myrna Malloy (Penelope Cruz). The two monsters fall in love and bond over Frank's love of the movies of Ronnie Reed (Jake Gyllenhaal), a Hollywood star and The Bride becomes a symbol of female rebellion, which in turns sparks a dance movement across the nation, as women, rise up to have their bloody revenge. The film builds to a bloody and violent ending which fits the material perfectly.

There is a lot to unpack here, it's not perfect, It shifts tonally and ricochets from black comedy to feminist treaty to thriller to crime drama back to black comedy in a blink of an eye. And through it all strides Jessie Buckley who roars and rules the screen, the way she channels the spirit of Shelley is breath-taking. But this isn't a one-woman show, Christian Bale as the monster aka Frank is equally intense and the two actors clearly seem to revel in their roles and chemistry. Similarly, Maggie Gyllenhaal as writer and director deserves special mention, her script, might be overwrought, overwritten and over-long, but it's also nevertheless insanely over the top and so packed with incident that it's like experiencing a drug-fuelled fever dream. She has created a unique take on the Frankenstein mythos and this film pays homage to many of the those past films including Young Frankenstein, The Bride of Frankenstein and the HAMMER Frankenstein franchise, while at the same time creating something new, this is a version of the monster that is profoundly ugly in looks, and poetic and romantic beneath the scarred and mutilated flesh.

A violent, brutal, savage, chaotic, furious film that also touching, and fugly romantic. This won't be everyone's cup-of-tea but it is insanely and fantastically unique. 

8/10

P.S.
I think this would make a wonderful double bill movie with Wuthering Heights.