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.
