LOS ANGELES, March 4 (UPI) -- Channeling both the literature and persona of Mary Shelley, The Bride!, in theaters Friday, crafts a monstrous love story seething with righteous indignation. Writer/director Maggie Gyllenhaal follows her heart in abstract directions that serve the piece.
The spirit of Mary Shelley (Jessie Buckley) is trapped in an afterlife purgatory. She is determined to bring her follow-up to Frankenstein to the world, so she possesses Ida (also Buckley) in 1936 Chicago.
Ida's possessed outbursts get her pushed down the stairs, breaking her neck. Soon after, Frankenstein's monster (Christian Bale), taking his creator's name, visits Chicago scientist Dr. Euphronius (Annette Bening) to create a partner for him.
By this point, Gyllenhaal has already laid out her thesis statement and they haven't even resurrected Ida yet. Ida is dead because she made the mistake of speaking up to misogynistic men, and even Frankenstein made the mistake of assuming Dr. Euphronius would be a man.
The good doctor used her first initial for that very reason. In 1936 society and medical communities she had to be ambiguous and allow those assumptions to even practice her craft.
