The Bride!

Directed by Maggie Gyllenhaal, The Bride! details the chaos that unfolds after Frankenstein’s monster (Christian Bale) tasks a mad scientist (Annette Bening’s Dr. Cornelia Euphronious) with resurrecting a dead woman (Jessie Buckley). It’s promising (and potentially electrifying) subject matter that’s squandered from the word go by Gyllenhaal, as the filmmaker, who kicks the proceedings off with a frustratingly unwatchable opening stretch, delivers a meandering, momentum-free disaster that contains little in the way of compelling, entertaining attributes – with the arms-length atmosphere compounded by Buckley’s grating, wildly over-the-top performance and a recurring emphasis on elements of a decidedly (and eye-rollingly) didactic nature. And while the picture admittedly contains a (very, very) small handful of admittedly engaging tangents and digressions, including a tense standoff with a crooked cop (Louis Cancelmi’s Officer Goodman), The Bride!, which also contains a police-procedural subplot that couldn’t possibly be less interesting, builds towards a rather endless climax that only confirms its place as a misguided and thoroughly disagreeable piece of work – which is a shame, ultimately, given the potential inherent within its premise and sterling roster of performers.

1/2* out of ****