The pieces don’t always fit in this disturbing music and dance infused road trip/love story. Writer/Director Maggie Gyllenhall (Director of The Lost Daughter) uses her wild imagination creating this audacious, mesmerizing, violent, uncomfortable watch.
You won’t recognize Jessie Buckley put back together and brought to life who becomes Frank’s Bride. She’s the perfect match for lonely Frankenstein (Christian Bale) who was long ago resurrected in Mary Shelley’s original novel. Gyllenhall uses Shelley, played by Buckley in black and white throughout the film, as a kind of evil presence with odd effect used intermittently. She becomes more a menacing distraction that doesn’t seem to help the story.
Buckley belongs to a band of female party girls who know too much posing a threat to the mob and its corruption. She’s being watched and marked for elimination. We see her partying wildly in that orange dress until she realizes she’s in danger and is pushed to her death.
Bale, once again, shows his enormous versatility. He’s a chameleon delivering another passionate performance playing this quiet, lonely, sad character who can become violent in an instant. He seeks out brilliant scientist, Euphronius (Annette Bening), to create a companion for him to be more than a friend, but a mate. They literally dig up a corpse and use Euphronius’ electrifying method to bring her back to life, for Frank to love.
Gyllenhall packs the film with too many references to other film themes and scenes, harkening back to Bonnie and Clyde, a musical production number from Young Frankenstein and other toe-tapping musicals in Black and White from the 1930’s and 40’s. She literally tapped her actor brother, Jake Gyllenhaal, to play Ronnie Reed, the matinee idol Frankenstein (Bale) reveres and can’t get enough of. You see Frank reacting with a big smile on his stitched together face at the sight of Reed on screen as he goes from theater to theater. And Gyllenhaal puts Bale in the scene with Jake dancing on screen having a ball! Bale’s Frankenstein musical styling is so entertaining. The homage to Peter Boyle is unmistakable.
This becomes an unhinged love story as these self-described monsters learn about each other, and fight brutally those who get in their way, then go on the run. Detectives Jake Wiles (Peter Sarsgaard) with smart, but not taken seriously, female detective Myrna (Penelope Cruz) work together to break the case. There are a series of incidents as the detectives realize who they’re hunting and past personal relationships complicate the capture of Frank and The Bride! Buckley’s Bride character even becomes inspiration for a 1930’s version of the #MeToo Movement for women, and for Detective Myrna.
Kudos to costuming, makeup and the music are distinctive elements in this film. Jessie Buckley only spent an hour and a half for creation of her black scarred mouth and wore the same orange satin frock throughout. Wouldn’t be surprised seeing that look this Halloween. But Bale spent 6 hours in the makeup chair. for his Frankenstein appearance. Original Music from Hildur Guǒnadóttir creates tense and dark, but also the light, entertaining musical throwback numbers for the old movies.
We scratched our head when Maggie Gyllenhaal used a few misplaced references to events that did not exist in the film’s time frame of the 1930’s and 40’s. For example, there were no 3D movies, Drive-In Theaters, nor astronauts at that time. Credit to Maggie Gyllenhaal’s extremely dark vision. It’s Jessie Buckley’s movie but Christian Bale nearly steals it. Bizarre, chaotic, it’s laced with comedy and music to keep you engaged at a wedding you may have serious reservations about attending.
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