The Bride! review: Punky, feminist Frankenstein is a Gothic monster mess

The Bride! (15, 127 mins)

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Jessie Buckley is currently blazing a Best Actress streak all the way to the Oscars for her transcendent turn in Hamnet. She's such an astonishing actress that I'd pay to watch her in anything… even The Bride!, an ambitious, punk rock, feminist spin on Frankenstein which, without her, would fall apart.

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein was published in 1818. It has spawned innumerable spin-offs – none penned by Shelley – including The Bride Of Frankenstein (1935), a cult camp movie in which 'The Bride' appears for just two minutes and doesn't utter a word.

The Bride! sets out to correct that – giving its heroine not just one voice but, confusingly (a lot of this is confusing), two.

The story, as far as I can tell, is this: Mary Shelley (Buckley) is trapped in limbo. But somehow she beams herself into the body of Ida (Buckley again), a gangster's moll in 1930s Chicago. Soon afterwards, Ida is killed. However (keep up!), she is dug up from her grave and reanimated by a 'mad scientist' (Annette Bening) to provide a mate for Frankenstein's monster, aka 'Frank' (a too-handsome Christian Bale), who is crushingly lonely after more than a century on his ownsome.

Frank christens his bride 'Penelope', as you do; and they set off on a Bonnie and Clyde-ish spree (minus the bank robbing), where Penny's outspoken, sexually outrageous, down-with-the-patriarchy attitude triggers an empowering cultural quake: prompting women of all ages to adopt her black lipstick look and wild, unladylike ways.

Basically, this is a whole lot of movie. It's a love story, a gothic thriller, an on-the-run caper, a body horror, a comedy, a steam-punk fantasy, a crime drama, a musical – and a hot mess. But you can't fault it for not taking big swings.

The Bride! is the brainchild of actor-turned-film-maker Maggie Gyllenhaal, whose Oscar-nominated 2021 directorial debut, The Lost Daughter, also starred her self-declared 'soul sister' Buckley. Her new film is a family affair, also featuring her real-life husband Peter Sarsgaard as a detective (with Penélope Cruz oddly wasted as his patronised female sidekick), and her brother Jake Gyllenhaal as a Fred Astaire-esque movie star, whom Frank idolises.

Bale's soulful 'Frank' is undoubtedly the sidekick in this show. Gyllenhaal reportedly had to fight the studio to secure Buckley's services – a victory that must be particularly sweet now, given the Oscars buzz trailing her leading lady. That won't hurt at the box office.

And the Irish actress's performance is every bit as fearless as Emma Stone's, when she played another re-animated female corpse in (the superior) Poor Things. But she brings to it a glorious humanity that's all her own.

You may not love The Bride!, but be glad it exists. In an era where Hollywood is increasingly risk-averse, you have to admire an original studio movie, from a female director, that aims high and winds up being too much to handle. It's a bit like 'Wuthering Heights' in that regard (and in its annoying punctuation marks).

Not a monstrous disaster. More a case of something old, something new, something borrowed – but lacking glue.

Mother's Pride (12A, 93 mins)   

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From Bride to Mother's Pride… Inspired by the sad fact that four UK pubs a day are shutting down, this bland comedy-drama from the makers of Fisherman's Friends focuses on a failing West Country pub and a grieving family whose lives are uplifted by brewing real ale together. A well-intentioned celebration of rural Little England, it heaves with rolling green fields, golden light, random TV faces (Josie Lawrence, Mark Addy, Miles Jupp), a villainous toff (Luke Treadaway) and the comfort of total predictability.

Thankfully, it also features Martin Clunes. The Doc Martin star is having 'a moment' right now, after 'Wuthering Heights' (yes, there's no escaping it), and his proper acting raises the bar.

However, it can't compensate for a written-by-cliches script that delivers Sir Thomas

Beecham's hoary old line of 'Try everything once, except incest and Morris dancing' like it's some brand-new zinger.

Dolly (18, 83 mins)

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Dolly is a grimy, blood-caked horror that's not interested in playing nice. Shot on crackly 16mm, its barely-plotted scenario sees Chase (American Pie's Seann William Scott) take his soon-to-be-fiancée (Fabianne Therese) on a hike through remote woodlands.

But before he can pop the question, the couple are terrorised by a hulking serial killer (a memorable debut turn from wrestler 'Max The Impaler'), sporting a lacy little dress, a cracked, porcelain doll mask and a rusty great shovel.

Well-balanced between laughs and brutal nastiness, there's niche franchise potential here for fans of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre who thought: 'What this needs is more dolls' houses'.

All films are in cinemas now.