​Gyllenhaal and Buckley flip the switch on ‘The Bride!’

By Greg Carlson

Before she takes the stage of the Dolby Theatre on March 15 to collect her Oscar for Best Actress in a Leading Role for her work in “Hamnet,” Jessie Buckley will find a few new fans as she transforms into the title monster in writer-director Maggie Gyllenhaal’s “The Bride!” Buckley’s vigorous portrayal of both Mary Shelley and the wholly cinematic sequel concoction designed as a “mate” for Christian Bale’s Frank pays tribute to Elsa Lanchester’s double duty in James Whale’s legendary 1935 extension. It is just the first of many intertextual references made by Gyllenhaal in her ambitious and chaotic feminist battle cry. Gyllenhaal previously directed Buckley to a Best Supporting Actress Academy Award nomination in “The Lost Daughter.” They make a formidable team.

Set in the world of Chicago mobsters in the year following the release of the original “Bride of Frankenstein,” Gyllenhaal’s handsomely realized environs quickly sketch a multitude of dangers for women trying to get by in a man’s world. Buckley’s good-time girl Ida, no shrinking violet, immediately runs afoul of a boss named Lupino (Zlatko Burić), who doesn’t give a second thought to killing anyone who rubs him the wrong way. The loss of Ida’s life will perhaps be Frank’s gain, as the re-animated corpse calls upon the scientific know-how of colleague Dr. Euphronious (Annette Bening) to resurrect Ida in the same manner that previously brought him back from the dead.

With no recollection of her life as Ida, the young woman eventually takes on the moniker Penelope, and Buckley’s ability to channel several accents, dialects and personalities transcends her own performance in “I’m Thinking of Ending Things.” Gyllenhaal clearly has a cinephile’s affection for the early sound era. The filmmaker writes several of her characters as movie-mad filmgoers who frequently end up at the bijou or the drive-in to watch the latest confections starring Ronnie Reed (Jake Gyllenhaal), an all-singing, all-dancing matinee idol. Along with these movie-within-the-movie homages, “The Bride!” envelops “Puttin’ on the Ritz” in a warm embrace of “Young Frankenstein” and builds a transfixing sequence around a 3D presentation of Bela Lugosi’s “White Zombie.”

Outside of the many “Frankenstein” tributes (Bale’s nose reminded me of Dick Briefer’s Prize Comics variant), Arthur Penn’s “Bonnie and Clyde” makes the biggest impact on Gyllenhaal. But where the 1967 movie is a master class in pacing and character dynamics, “The Bride!” struggles to move with the same propulsive force and emotional urgency. Penélope Cruz and Peter Sarsgaard, pursuing our protagonists, never muster the “His Girl Friday” energy Gyllenhaal yearns to communicate as Cruz’s Myrna Malloy (no Myrna Loy or Rosalind Russell) ascends from assistant to lead detective.

With a terrific cast and plenty of stylistic elements in the win column, “The Bride!” is more muscular in concept than execution. Gyllenhaal’s screenplay is in desperate need of another draft or two. Once Bening disappeared from the story, I lost all hope that her Euphronious would live up to the indelibly queer stamp of Ernest Thesiger’s unforgettable Dr. Pretorius. Whale’s “Bride of Frankenstein,” which only gives Lanchester’s iconic creature a few minutes of screen time (but oh, what she manages in those precious seconds!), is ripe for a re-imagining, placing the female creature at the heart and the center of the universe. “The Bride!” is, ultimately, not that movie. Even so, I greatly admire Gyllenhaal’s chutzpah. And any movie that ends with a “Monster Mash” needle drop can’t be all bad. 

Reach film critic Greg Carlson at gregcarlson1@gmail.com.