In an era of seemingly endless safe remakes of profitable intellectual properties, “The Bride!” flips everything on its head, taking the loose mythos of the Frankenstein story and setting it in 1930’s Chicago with a Bonnie and Clyde-esque love story.
Ida (Jessie Buckley), a woman working as a police informant for the Chicago police department, is trying to take down the fictitious and infamous Lupino crime family. However, she is left out to dry due to corrupt, exploitative men in control of the system. This leads to her insanity, death and feverish desire to live her own life after being dug up and reanimated by Frank (Christian Bale) and a local mad scientist (Annette Bening).
Buckley and Bale steal the show: the former plays a reanimated dead body with multiple personality disorders in an endlessly entertaining way, and the latter invokes the spirit of Boris Karloff in every aspect of his physicality while still putting his own unique spin on the character.
Over the course of their crime spree, The Bride, as she comes to be known, begins to inspire women all across the country. In a bold sequence, they take up arms against controlling, violent men and live lives of brazen autonomy in a way that balances the beauty of sisterhood with grand empowerment.
The film even pays homage to Mel Brooks’ comedy classic “Young Frankenstein” (1974) in one over-the-top dancing scene set to “Puttin’ on the Ritz.” The sequence is one of the most stylized and high-energy sequences in the whole picture, showcasing the monsters’ individuality, lust for life and personal freedom.
“The Bride!” is not without any minor issues. The pacing can be confusing, with the film’s ending feeling clunky and dragged out, as too many plotlines had to be tied up in too little time.
Those who prefer films grounded in realism may struggle to adjust to the bold, campy style of “The Bride!” Surrealism bleeds through the strange dream-like visuals even in its more grounded sequences.
Upon viewing the discourse for this film online after its wider release, I have to say that I find it interesting that when one looks at reviews, the positive and negative takes of it are very clearly divided by gender lines, with men disproportionately disliking the film more than women, but for reasons more vague than I laid out. Perhaps some were uncomfortable with the usual male protagonist of this story taking a back seat to tell a tale of fighting back against the status quo, or making men pay interest for all of the ills of society that they’re responsible for.
In the wake of the second Trump administration, I can see how such a story would be unpopular and flounder at the box office immediately following its release, especially given the existing and oncoming rise of conservatism in the media, as discussed in the USA Today Network article "Democrats don't have a messaging problem. They have a media problem."
Independently of all, the style, subject matter, themes, characters and ideas explored in "The Bride!" can be appreciated and widely regarded as one of the most creative and out-of-the-box adaptations of a beloved classic. It has a real heart with things to say and a reason for being beyond another soulless retelling of a bankable intellectual property.
This article was edited by Alfie Pritchard, Jessica Ackerman and Walker Whalen. Copy editing done by Avery Grossman, Ryan Sieve, Ava Stuzin and Jaden Maitland Anderson.
