Maggie Gyllenhaal's feminist-horror shriek, The Bride!, is a cinematic Rorschach that I hope will pull patrons into lively discussions of its many themes.
Jessie Buckley delivers a fully committed performance as the title character -- a revivified murdered moll in the '30s, Ida, who occasionally channels the spirit of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, the author of horror classic Frankenstein. Buckley (celebrated for her bravura performance in Hamnet) struts, spews and contorts as a resurrected discarded woman in search of a "name," which, of course, is the film's marker for "identity."
Joining Buckley at center stage is Christian Bale as a lovelorn suitor, the centuries-old Frankenstein's monster, who comes to Chicago to seek help from Dr. Euphronious, played with gusto by Annette Bening. Euphronious has been conducting her own experiments on animal cadavers. Together, the monster and the doctor unearth Ida's corpse and bring to life this broken but spirited woman who seems indifferent to love -- at first.
Gyllenhaal blends Old Hollywood pastiche with neo-punk stylings, casting her famous brother, Jake, as a Silver Screen song and dance man on whom Frankie, a movie buff, is fixated. Swept up in Tinsel Town romance, Frankie and Ida give dating a whirl but find only rejection and brutality in the clubs they visit. They retaliate, police get involved, and eventually the film turns into an homage to Bonnie and Clyde.
Much of The Bride! is presented with knowing winks and nods about its "shocking" elements. But there is quite a lot to reflect on here -- most pressingly society's visceral, violent response to women who step out of line and dare to say, "I am NOT who you say I am! Who am I?"
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