The Bride stars Jesse Buckley and Christian Bale as the main leads. It’s a movie directed by Maggie Gyllenhaal. The story here follows the chaos and drama that ensues when Frankenstein's monster gains a new companion to enjoy life with after Dr. Euphrronius brings a murdered woman back to life.
The previews definitely showcase the unique screenplay with the main character dynamics feeling reminiscent of Joker and Harley, which honestly is a dynamic duo you can't go wrong with in a story. The movie was really worth watching, but then I had mixed feelings by the end.
To start with, the casting was straight on point. After seeing Jesse Buckley in action for Hamnet, I knew she was going to obliterate this role here, and she does annihilate pretty much every damn scene as expected. Christian Bale is legendary, too. Great performances as Frankie, and I love seeing his chemistry with Buckley in the myriad of scenarios we get to see them together. Everyone else did a great job to fit into their side roles as well, so kudos to the ensemble involved.
Another good thing about the film is the stylistic and technical choices made to shoot this film. There's a lot of originality to the aesthetic, the costumes, the set locations, and really the way certain segments were cinematically framed. So, yeah, I appreciated the strong vision paired with this screenplay.
And then I loved the introduction of Frankie in act one, and really the first half of the film that entailed. Everything about his story setup was intriguing, and I was enticed to see how the bride character would start things up with him.
For the cons, one of my core issues is how the entirety of the second half felt outright messy in execution. There's some side arcs that didn't feel all too necessary, and sometimes the story gets lost in the sauce with its themes and with feminist empowerment ideals that can sometimes feel too much on the nose. Like, I appreciated the more subtle moments of this, especially with the mobster element involved sort of being a prime example about toxic masculinity suppressing female voices both mentally and physically. But then there's other feminist moments that just felt outright unnatural in execution and were quite literally there just to be shoved at the audience's faces.
Another area I had issue with were the segments where the bride talks to her alternate inner voice. Great double character performances from Jesse Buckley, but I didn't resonate as much as I feel I should have with these segments. They were kind of strange for me and also again a bit too on the nose at times when leading the story direction.
And to crown it all, I just had a neutral feel to this overall cinematic package. So with that said, my rating for The Bride is 6 out of 10. This movie was simply a good one-time watch experience for me. See you in my next review.
