We have seen a good number of iterations of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (and loose adaptations). But what about the Bride of Frankenstein? Apart from her portrayal in James Gunn’s Creature Commandos -and a splendid one at that- there hasn’t been much representation of the monster’s other arguably more interesting half.

Director Maggie Gyllenhaal steps up with her directorial debut creature feature, adding a more modernized punk rock goth feel to retelling the story in a black comedy frame, titling it The Bride! And I must say: it’s certainly quite a ride that does pick up steam and has potential to being a cult hit.

Power Couple

The Bride! focuses on the titular character, former mob callgirl named Ira (Jessie Buckley) who ends up getting killed in an accident early on. Fast forward to the 30s, and we have Frankenstein’s Monster (Christian Bale) who has survived all these years trying to get help from Dr. Euphronius (Annette Bening) to resurrect a woman for him because of years of loneliness. After much convincing, they did just that and resurrects Ira from the dead, and with it a bunch of misadventures on the latter’s behalf. Being liberated, she just wants to be free and party hard, and also gets a bunch of flashbacks about her past life and the circumstances of her death (and countless other callgirls she knew personally). Also, the tag-team creature feature gets stalked by law enforcements led by detective Jake Wiles (Peter Sarsgaard) and his “secretary” Myrna Mallow (Penelope Cruz), the latter actually doing the legwork and being good at it as a thinly veiled nod to the growing feminism movement the movie wallows in.

Did I forget to mention that she also gets a mental pep talk from Mary Shelley, the author of Frankenstein? This isn’t a late-show plot twist I’m spoiling: this is literally the first 10 minutes into the film and clearly a nod to the old Bride of Frankenstein 1935 flick. That’s like having a Mortal Kombat movie where Johnny Cage gets psyched out from a near KO from creators Ed Boon and John Tobias out of left field.

Of course, all these contrivances and other complications are not meant to be in the way as the show’s direction just revels in its chaos sown by the two and how it encourages other folks in the 30s to do the same.

The majority of the movie has awkward pacing with its narrative flow all over the place; like a music video that is trying to tell its plot and then realizes it needed to rely less on stylistic transitions to get its point across. However, it at least has a few standout moments that put the spotlight on Buckley, who is clearly having the time of her life portraying a still-mentally-warped former corpse getting into grips with reality. Said bits include a gatecrash of the Monster’s favourite movie star Ronnie Reed (Jake Gyllenhaal) and the standoff that caps it off, and the part where the duo gets pulled by the cops for speeding and how they “delicately” handled it. It’s moments like these that shows Gyllenhaal and her crew’s restraint that attempts to clear up the muddied and frenetic direction.

Monster Mash

The Bride! starts off a bit too slow, wraps up way too abruptly and doesn’t have much cohesion telling its plot in-between. But it is an interesting take as a whole with Buckley and Bale taking the material forward. Props to director Maggie Gyllenhaal for taking some creative risks with its punk rock look and tributes to black-and-white cinema.

I do hope the actress-turned-future-auteur takes what she learns from her first-time work and make a more substantial flick in the future. The Bride! is an interesting “sequel” to the classic monster book, but isn’t going to stand out too much and leave a lasting impression.

Final Score: 60/100