“THE BRIDE!” (quotation marks co-sign the exclamation point’s insistence that this is not the same as THE BRIDE starring Sting) is a wild and incoherent movie, both for good and bad, and not really in the ways I expected. The trailers suggested a stylized rock musical sort of approach, but they did that by emphasizing the occasional stylistic diversions (a dance fantasy, a James Whale homage). For the most part the world of the movie is more normal and literal than that, grounding the absurd premise “What if the monster and bride of Frankenstein were alive in the thirties and sort of turned into Bonnie and Clyde?” So you got these two heightened monster characters interacting with mobsters and getting chased by cops and regular stuff like that.

In the opening seconds we learn that it’s way more convoluted than the trailer conveyed, with a concept I’m not sure even the full movie gets across with clarity. You see, Academy Award winner Jessie Buckley (MEN) plays Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, famed author of Kenneth Branagh’s version of Frankenstein. Her soul is trapped in some sort of purgatory where she says she’s been for centuries (though the movie is set in 1936, which is 85 years after Shelley’s death). She says that Frankenstein “wasn’t the half of it. What I wanted to write…what I needed to say, I couldn’t.” Whatever great story she had in mind she never got to put on paper because of a brain tumor, so she possesses a lady in Chicago named Ida (Jessie Buckley, JUDY), sometimes but not most of the time speaks through her, and… somehow causes her to live out her life as that unwritten story? Pretty ballsy of writer/director Maggie Gyllenhaal (THE LOST DAUGHTER) to write a story and have Mary Shelley declare it better than Frankenstein.

In the opinion of the movie, Shelley was a kickass feminist with a take-no-prisoners wit and punk rock attitude whose wry banter would scandalize the backwards simpletons of 1936. Not only would she stand up to sexist pigs, but she would engage her writerly brain by spitting out lists of words: “Slow down, mate. Shipmate. Helpmate. Stalemate. Amalgamate. Imitate. Decimate. Transubstantiate…” Outrageous!

She causes Ida to make a scene at a restaurant, talking about nearby mob boss Vito Lupino (Zlatko Buric, TRIANGLE OF SADNESS) cutting off tongues and poisoning meatballs – crimes everyone seems to be aware of, but not want to be discussed in flowery language and an English accent. Ida’s mobbed up companions Clyde (John Magaro, THE BRAVE ONE) and James (Matthew Maher, BRINGING OUT THE DEAD) correctly describe her as possessed and slap her around until she falls down some stairs and dies.

Meanwhile/coincidentally, the monster from Shelley’s (non-fiction, we’re being told?) book, referred to as “Frank” (Christian Bale, POCAHONTAS), is so lonely he has travelled to Chicago to convince the scientist Dr. Cornelia Euphronious (Annette Bening, NYAD) to “reinvigorate” a bride for him. She doesn’t want to do it until he shames her by saying, “I thought you were a mad scientist!” So they find Ida’s corpse in a pauper’s grave and revive her in a Frankenstein-fashion (different models of his equipment seem to be commercially available now).

At first the story seems to want to chastise Frank for his incel-like presumptuousness, thinking because he’s lonely it’s okay to turn a non-consenting dead person into his on-demand insta-bride. But it’s much more sympathetic toward him than critical. In fact, he’s the romantic lead. The movie follows the romance formula where one character is misleading the other as they fall in love, and everything is happy until the truth is discovered, rupturing the relationship, but fortunately they’re able to make up. In this case the misleading thing is he convinces her she’s been in an accident and doesn’t remember it but they were in love and engaged.

I’m not against “THE BRIDE!” being about that, but I have to note that its sentiments are less radical than advertised. In the trailer when she asks what her name is and laughs about not remembering, it plays as so pointed – how can a character be as iconic as “The Bride of Frankenstein” and not even have her own name? In the movie Frank lies to her about her name and she ultimately decides she wants to name herself. But she names herself “The Bride.” Hmm.

And yet I was somewhat entertained by this movie, because they nailed the most crucial part: the creation of this The Bride character, especially on a graphic level. Upon rebirth she coughs up “crystalloid solution” that permanently stains her face, so there’s a black ink spill on the side of her mouth, while her hair sticks up like a splatter in the other direction. It’s a perfect visual representation of her messy personality. Harley Quinn as drawn by Ralph Steadman.

Unsurprisingly Buckley is great, and makes The Bride more fun than offputting, even though she’s… alot. It’s like spending two hours with a very drunk woman making a non-stop bitter commentary that is mostly incomprehensible to the rest of us. I wouldn’t do it again and wouldn’t want the night to last any longer (in fact, I wish it was shorter), but it’s kind of an amusing hang.

Bale’s Frank isn’t as visually appealing as The Bride, but other than a later accent change he makes it work for me. It’s a version of the monster beaten down by his miserable existence, well meaning, but obviously with some pretty big moral lapses. He’s lived a life where he doesn’t want any trouble, so when eventually goaded into stomping a street harasser’s head flat he doesn’t get macho about it, he immediately tries to leave town so that Ida (who he has named Penelope) won’t get mixed up with the mob he knows will come after him.

That’s the pitchfork kind, not the mafia kind who are already after her. She doesn’t know where else to go, so they flee together to New York, with police detective Jake Wiles (Peter Sarsgaard, THE SKELETON KEY) and his assistant Myrna Malloy (Penelope Cruz, FERRARI) on their trail.

Frank finds comfort in going to the movies, and idolizes song and dance man Ronnie Reed (Jake Gyllenhaal, OKJA). This leads to a sequence I’m really torn about, because it involves a big band playing “Puttin’ On the Ritz,” and I just think it’s a mortal sin to make a riff on Frankenstein movies that basically remakes the most famous scene in the most famous riff on Frankenstein movies. The smaller references to YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN make me bristle a little, but this is just a clear violation. I don’t know how anyone was okay with it.

On the other hand it’s a good dance number, so it’s fun to watch. They just should’ve used a different song and not had the monster moan the title. Then it would’ve been great.

(Choreographers: Michelle Dorrance [dancer in SPIRITED], Or Schraiber [movement coach for WOLF MAN] and Bobbi Jene Smith [ANNIHILATION – I can’t remember where the choreography would be in that, but apparently she did it].)

“THE BRIDE!” was considered a big flop, one of the swings Warner Brothers missed in the same inning they hit SINNERS and ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER out of the park. I will always support studios giving big budgets to directors to do original, risky or just plain weird movies, and even though I don’t particularly love this one I’m glad Gyllenhaal got to do it. In fact, we should honor her for losing so much money for a corporation subsequently handed over to even bigger assholes than the previous ones. Unfortunately, as monstrous oligarchs continue to steal the studios and squoosh them together into one big ball of shit we will be seeing fewer movies like these, if any. So I got nothing but respect for Rachel Dawes #2. Good effort.

P.S. Apologies to Mr. Majestyk – I was writing this before I saw your positive comments about “THE BRIDE!”. But I’m glad there are still new movies you can enjoy more than me.

P.P.S. My favorite thing to come out of this movie is Ryan Coogler having Gyllenhaal on his podcast and being shocked that she didn’t previously know much about IMAX, since she was in THE DARK KNIGHT.