Gyllenhaal’s The Bride wants to function as a revenge story, though not specifically for Ida, but symbolically for all women. As she moves through the present-day narrative, fragments of Ida’s past begin to surface, gradually revealing her desire to retaliate against the criminal mob boss (Zlatko Burić) responsible for the disappearance of multiple women. However, this drive isn’t introduced until a strangely abrupt and forced story beat that arrives almost out of nowhere. Much like Joker, the film leans on an unearned monologue that suddenly pivots the character toward radical social change and, of course, starts a revolution among the ladies. Nevertheless, Joker‘s gradual development is in stark contrast to Gyllenhaal’s script and direction, which are disorganized.
The Bride is another movie that takes a serious subject (in this case, sexual violence) and gives it a swollen, empty feel. It mostly relies on Shelley being Ida’s “Green Goblin” to enact its feminist statements, and it feels like a lame joke straight out of The Other Two. I can envision Wanda Sykes saying, “Yes, we have a Maggie Gyllenhaal Bride of Frankenstein film that uses Mary Shelley as the bride’s subconscious. But get this, the subconscious is a tool to discuss fourth-wave feminist stuff.” It all comes off as an exploitative joke, right down to a rambling scene where Buckley cries out, “Me too,” like a breathy slam poet out of spiritual exhaustion. The otherwise pointless detective subplot feeds into the film’s shallow exploration of gender norms, with Cruz’s Myrna Malloy dismissed as a detective simply because she’s a woman, even though she’s the sharpest mind in the room.
It’s done with the same lazy, irritating attitude found in Joker, but it’s best compared to Emerald Fennell’s works, as it’s actively concerned about homaging better features while taking no real discernible interest in the themes she introduces.