Notable Cast: Jessie Buckley, Christian Bale, Peter
Sarsgaard, Penelope Cruz, Annette Bening, John Magaro, Jeannie Berlin, Jake
Gyllenhaal
When the trailer for your film features the slogan “Here
comes the motherfucking bride” in big bold letters, one might expect that
audiences might be prepared for an audacious cinematic experience. The title
ends with an exclamation mark. It’s not like it’s trying to necessarily hide
the fact that it’s going to be a rather wild ride of a film. Yet, Maggie
Gyllenhaal’s second feature-length film, The Bride!, was met with a lot
of pearl-clutching and some dismissiveness from critics and audiences alike
regarding its messy nature and the bold choices it makes in its writing,
characters, design, and overall intentions.
Well, if there’s one thing that I love in a movie, it’s
audacity. Whether it works or not, I’ll take a film that swings for the fences
and tries to throw its weight around. Given that the Frankenstein mythos,
including The Bride of Frankenstein, has been adapted in one million ways for
various audiences and with varying degrees of success, please give me something
that, as a film, feels as scattered, sewn together, and fighting for life as
its characters. To quote one of the iconic film critics, Joe Bob Briggs, “The
only sin of a movie, in my opinion, is to be boring.” And The Bride! is
certainly not that. Far from it.
In fact, The Bride! might end up being one of the
best films I’ve seen this year. It’s absolutely crafted with a sense of rage at
the world, where a repeated phrase, “I would prefer not to,” becomes a war cry
against expectations, social pressures, and a system built against you.
Gyllenhaal takes the Bride of Frankenstein concept, updates it for the modern
meta-textural era, and adds a lingering undercurrent of ‘fuck you’ to the
conventions of storytelling and cinematic language. Yet, it still manages to
feel humane with its characters and honest with its messages, and never feels
like it's screaming just for the sake of screaming. There’s a heart beating in
this monster, and just like its two leads, you might not always hear it because
of what you see on the surface, but it's there nonetheless.
On the surface, yes, this film feels scattered at times. There’s a propulsive meta-ideology to the film that is certainly a C.H.O.I.C.E., and it intentionally treats its viewers and the narrative as though it's seen through a 4th-dimensional looking glass. This is often abrasive, even towards itself, and pulls its characters and audience out of the narrative. It also creates a layered dynamic throughout the entire film. The Bride! knows its layered, addresses its layers, and perhaps even tries to dismantle its own layers throughout the entire runtime.
Take its lead actress, for example. Jessie Buckley essentially plays 4 roles. The disembodied spirit of Mary Shelley is the first. This character is monologuing to the audience and the film with a full snarl, as if she’s been stuck in a black box, one-woman theatrical production for eternity. This character essentially possesses the body of Ida, also played by Buckley, who is promptly killed as she tries to control the influence of Shelly on her mind by some mafia baddies. Why mafia baddies? Oh, cause the film takes place in a dreamlike, broadly painted, fantastical version of 1930s Chicago. Naturally. Then, as with all Frankenstein adaptations (or pseudo-sequels in the case of The Bride!), she is dug up by Frankenstein’s monster, Frank - played by Christian Bale, and Dr. Euphronius, played by Annette Bening, and brought back to life to be Frank’s companion, whom he tells is his wife, Penelope Rogers, who died in an accident. There are three characters now. And as the film progresses, Buckley’s character comes into her own as the titular The Bride, who is not defined by any other person, but herself. That’s #4.
Each of her progressive identities is integral to the
narrative. It contains the soul of what Gyllenhaal seems to be aiming for with
the film's themes regarding women and the lack of agency over their bodies and
minds by social and personal relationships. Is that a clean message or
definitively expressed in each moment? No. Yet, there’s such a brash honesty in
how this character, played with expert pizzazz by Buckley, and the narrative
roll out feel true to the analogy at hand. Life is messy. People are not
clear-cut with defined arcs in real life, and Gyllenhaal is tapping into that
with vigor here.
Yet, a theme of ‘being stitched together’ runs through the entire film, humming with a distinct tone. Frank is literally stitched together from other people. The Bride’s mental state is stitched together by social constraints, expectations, and her need to break free of those to be who she wants to be. Even the design of the film, which mashes together 1930s aesthetics with modern music, the reality of the world with movie elements, defined by these musical pictures Frank is obsessed with watching, as it makes him feel like he’s part of the real world and not some monster, and even the manner in which the film is edited, all feel stitched together. It’s a fascinating approach to how the material aligns together in intention and execution. It’s one that kept me thinking more and more about those layers mentioned before.
Yet all of these characters and layers are stitched into a
bigger message, too. There is a large swath of this film that is crafted on the
foundations of being pissed off at the patriarchy. Not just in how The Bride is
treated by all the men in her life, down to how Frank initially sees her as a
cure for loneliness rather than the partner he discovers while on the run, but
in other characters as well. Dr. Euphronius is a female scientist who can’t use
her first name for fear of not being taken seriously and is convinced to go
against her own convictions to reanimate The Bride. Two detectives, Peter
Sarsgaard and Penelope Cruz, are caught up in a system where Cruz’s Malloy is
never given any credit as an incredible detective, when it’s all given to her
partner, Wiles. The film goes so far as to have women inspired by The Bride’s
campaign to rise up against the system itself. Even The Bride’s firm stance in
saying ‘no’ to expectations set on her as a woman, through her catchphrase, “I
would prefer not to,” is certainly said in a way that is least offensive, which
says a lot in itself to even at her angriest, she still has remnants of the
constraints put upon her.
In the end, though, perhaps my favorite part of The Bride! is that,
while there’s all this hammer-on-the-head messaging, layers of meta-structure,
and fascinating character portrayals, it still ends up being a love story at
its heart. Sure, it's got its horror elements that creep into the cosmic and
manages to be a chase film in its plot structure as Frank and The Bride end up
fleeing the social constraints that paint them as monsters, but there’s a love
story that drives so much of the emotional charge. While I understand that The
Bride’s rage at the society and people who defined all aspects of her life can
be seen as running counter to the love story, it’s more impressive in how it
feels more humane in doing so. Every character, written intentionally or not,
is flawed, and the film essentially addresses this in the love story between
Frank and The Bride. Both Buckley and Bale expertly navigate it, too, showing
the ups and downs, the lies and truths, and the speed and stillness that make a
love story so compelling. And they manage to do it through wild make-up designs,
wild swings of genre flips - including a massive musical dance number, and in a
film that never apologizes for bucking cinematic safety to tell that
story.
The Bride! is absolutely a film that will become a
cult midnight favorite in the near future. From the divisive response from
critics and audiences, to the bold storytelling of its script and characters,
to the manner in which Gyllenhaal executes it all in its design and direction,
this film is the film it wants to be. If there is one thing that I felt
wholeheartedly at the end of it, it’s that Gyllenhaal and her collaborators
absolutely understood the assignment in adapting the work of Mary Shelly or
James Whale. This film is the monster that Shelly wrote about in her book, or
that James Whale imbued in his cinematic adaptations, Frankenstein and The
Bride of Frankenstein. When the ‘monster’ we fear and don’t understand is
standing in front of us, a monster that defies our understanding of how the
world should work, maybe, just maybe, we are actually afraid of the real
humanity and truth in front of us, not the audacious cinematic vessel it
arrives in.
No comments:
Post a Comment