Director: Maggie Gyllenhaal
Starring: Jessie Buckley, Christian Bale, Peter Sarsgaard, Annette Bening, Jake Gyllenhaal, Penélope Cruz
Certificate: 15
Run Time: 126 mins

The Bride! (yes, that exclamation mark is intentional…) is the second film by Maggie Gyllenhaal after her multi-Oscar nominated debut The Lost Daughter. While the film had some interesting themes, it failed to fully explore them and I didn’t care for the characters at all. But Gyllenhaal takes some bolder swings with The Bride! – an alternative take on the Bride of Frankenstein that was of course based on Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel.

The film opens with Mary Shelley (Jessie Buckley) speaking from the afterlife, who explains she had another story to tell after Frankenstein, but her death put an end to that desire. So she possesses Ida (also Jessie Buckley), a woman in 1930s Chicago who in the film’s opening scene, openly discusses the criminal activities of crime boss Lupino (Zlatko Burić) at a fancy restaurant, before being finished off by his henchmen.

Elsewhere in Chicago, Frankenstein’s monster (Christian Bale), who goes by ‘Frank’ arrives at Dr Cornelia Euphronius’ (Annette Bening). Aware of her reanimation work, he enlists her to create a companion to combat his loneliness, which happens to be Ida’s corpse. What follows is the relationship that develops between Frank and Ida and the trouble they get into against the law.

There have been many adaptations of Frankenstein over the years – just look at Guillermo del Toro’s recent rendition that’s currently up for a Best Picture Oscar – Shelley’s novel is a timeless tale, after all. But not all of them are good, and while undoubtedly an original vision, The Bride! is a bad one…

A mash-up between Bonnie and Clyde, Joker: Folie a Deux and Public Enemies, The Bride! is an utter mess that frequently changes gear and can never decide what it wants to be – it flits between being a gangster film to sci-fi to a twisted romance, with some musical numbers thrown in – and it’s often incoherent. Maggie Gyllenhaal is also on scriptwriting duties and it’s just woeful, with fine actors delivering some seriously ear-scraping lines. I knew I was in for a rough ride with the spectacularly misjudged opening scene, which would surely send Mary Shelley spinning in her grave – and the overlong experience rarely let up afterwards.

After being miscast in Hamnet (although I’m in the minority with that opinion), Jessie Buckley is dreadful as the titular bride, saddled with delivering literary gibberish as the possessed corpse. I felt nothing for the character and cringed every time she was on screen (which is a lot!), however it must be acknowledged that Buckley’s only doing what’s been asked of her by her director.

Christian Bale just about gets away with his reputation intact as Frankenstein’s monster, even if the character is confoundingly written, as does Annette Bening in a largely expository role. Peter Sarsgaard and Penélope Cruz play a detective and assistant duo, who are also poorly serviced by Gyllenhaal’s script – but both are more tolerable than Jessie Buckley’s abomination. In a sprinkling of nepotism as the cherry on top, the always-excellent Jake Gyllenhaal also appears as a popular Hollywood actor, but his role is so minor that he also walks alway scot-free – give it a few years and most will forget he was in this film!

Not even Hildur Guðnadóttir’s score can save proceedings, nor can Lawrence Sher’s bleak cinematography – it’s interesting that Gyllenhaal opted for the same composer and cinematographer as Joker and its divisive sequel. Slightly elevating The Bride! is the excellent and lavish costume design by Sandy Powell – it’s just a shame that the film around it is just so weak.

Some have and will continue to champion The Bride! for trying something different. But different doesn’t always mean good and Maggie Gyllenhaal’s film is a car crash of clashing tones and ideas, hamstrung by an atrocious script and a ghastly Jessie Buckley performance. It proved a thoroughly miserable cinematic experience and I’ll be surprised (and depressed) if there’s a worse film this year…