The Bride: Movie Review

Cast: Jessie Buckley, Christian Bale, Peter Sarsgaard, Annette Bening, Penelope Cruz, Jake Gyllenhaal
Director: Maggie Gyllenhaal

Jessie Buckley's star continues to rise in The Bride.

The Bride! takes some big swings under the helmship of Maggie Gyllenhaal - and it largely pays dividends, delivering an audacious film that feels like nothing else out there. Until its final third when it falls drastically off the rails.

Buckley is Ida, who's murdered at the start of the film by a mobster boss, who believes her loose tongue will cause them problems. Unceremoniously dumped, she's recovered by Christian Bale's Frankenstein and Dr Euphonious (a toothy Bening) after the monster decides he needs companionship.

However, when the Bride comes back to life, her memory is shattered and she embarks on a quest to rediscover and reclaim her identity, sweeping up those around her in an ongoing crusade.

There's much to love about the Bride! as it swirls around the idea of a monster-led Bonnie and Clyde (though its use of the Monster Mash at the end seems trite and cheesy). A feminist romp that's about women fighting back will have many complaining about its woke edges, but Gyllenhaal's crafted a story that, while all the loose ends don't tie up, is for the most part, completely engaging and chaotically bonkers at the same time.

Less Gothic, more gangster, it feels like a spiritual partner to Joker: Folie A Deux, with less of the maudlin touches to go on. Central to all of this is Buckley, a dual edged performance that is filled with energy, surprise, sadness, tragedy and compassion in equal measures. It's a tour de force and a full commitment from Buckley pays dividends in what's likely to be a polarising performance.

Bale's turn is soulful, one that tunes into the loneliness of the monster and who aches for connection, before erupting into extreme violence. But he's lesser than the sum of his parts here, a not quite equal to Buckley's brilliance - despite an out-there dance number for Putting On The Ritz.

Perhaps less successful are Sarsgaard and Cruz's detectives who come into the story to investigate the spree and who feel like they're barely in enough to warrant much of an arc - even if Cruz's character forms part of the feminist allegory that plays out.

Ultimately, The Bride! is a film which bursts onto the screen with such chutzpah and steam that it's inevitably going to falter - which it sadly does toward the end - but for large swathes of the 2 hour journey, Gyllenhaal's inventive and gender-swapped take on the Bride of Frankenstein is one that has a unique voice, that deserves to be applauded.