The Bride! (15)
Directed by Maggie Gyllenhaal
⭑⭑⭑⭑☆



 

ACTOR turned director Maggie Gyllenhaal brings us a provocative and audacious feminist reimagining of the Bride of Frankenstein which is wild, crazy and visually arresting, and in which she finally finds her voice and sparks a movement. 

In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein the Bride is created to be the monster’s companion but she is never brought to life. 

In this version a very lonely Frankenstein (Christian Bale) arrives in 1930s Chicago and asks groundbreaking scientist Dr Euphronious (Annette Bening) to create a girlfriend for him. So they dig up the corpse of a murdered young woman, Ida, and bring her back to life.  She cannot remember her name or who she was or how she came to be and they lie to her about it. 

Jessie Buckley is mesmerising and electrifying as Ida/the Bride and gives her most unbridled and unhinged performance to date as her character is periodically possessed by Mary Shelley. She has no filter as the Bride takes on a life of her own and goes on the run with Frank, Bonnie and Clyde-style, as they are pursued by two detectives played by Peter Sarsgaard and Penelope Cruz. While Buckley’s Bride is loud and unpredictable Bale’s Frank is intelligent, jaded and surprisingly tender at times.

Written and directed by Gyllenhaal and filmed for IMAX this is a punk rock gothic romance which explores the sexual discrimination and sexual violence women suffer. The Bride is dug up and reinvigorated without her consent to be Frankenstein’s wife again without being consulted. As the film unfolds, she becomes empowered and inspires other women, who adopt her facial black mark and black lips, to follow suit. A cultural movement is born as they fight back. 

Meanwhile Frank’s obsession with matinee idol Ronnie Reed (Jake Gyllenhaal) grows as he takes the Bride to see his films in every town they go to, culminating in the pair gatecrashing a party Reed is attending. This results in a surreal musical number reminiscent of Fred and Ginger. 

There is a lot to unpack in this #MeToo drama as Gyllenhaal throws everything at it. You won’t know what has hit you by the end but Buckley, who went from this to star in Hamnet, demonstrates what an extraordinary actor she is. 

This is a must-see film on the largest screen possible. 
MD
In cinemas March 6

The King’s Warden (15)
Directed by Jang Hang-jun
⭑⭑☆☆☆

THERE’s something oddly Brecht-like about the oriental setting and the exaggerated, un-naturalistic performances in this depressing tale of a deposed boy-king, sent into exile and eventually obliged to commit suicide.

Brecht-like in earthy dialogue and awkward class relations, that is, but not in message as the sentimental peasants learn nothing, and cruel feudal justice rules the day like a natural law that can’t be challenged. The only lesson learned is a smattering of literacy dispensed by haughty royal beneficence.

And yet, this slow and poker-faced medieval panto is a smash hit in South Korea. With extended sequences of rice-worship and a ropey CGI tiger attack, its popularity is baffling.
AR
In cinemas March 6

Sound of Falling (18)
Directed by Mascha Schilinski
⭑☆☆☆☆

Set over the course of a hundred years on the same remote farm in northern Germany, this bewildering psychological drama follows the lives of four girls as they spend their summers there. 

Their stories unfold in different decades (1910s, 1940s, 1980s and 2020s) and the non-linear timelines are frustrating to keep up with. Meanwhile co-writer-director Mascha Schilinski opted for artistic and dream-like style over substance with a hint of the supernatural.  

Told from the female point of view the girls all suffer some form of trauma but there is no correlation between their experiences or their lives. They are not even related. 

It felt pretentious and long winded and the finale did not justify the two-and-a-half-hour journey which asked the question: what was the point of it?

Less would have been more. 
MD
In cinemas March 6

Mother’s Pride (12A)
Directed by Nick Moorcroft
⭑☆☆☆☆

From the makers of Fisherman’s Friends comes a British comedy about the survival of a failing pub which unfortunately isn’t as charming or as funny as the earlier film. 

Co-written and directed by Nick Moorcroft (Fisherman’s Friends and Fisherman’s Friends: One and All) this follows a grieving father (Martin Clunes) and his two adult sons (Junno Davies and James Buckley) who try to save the family pub by brewing real ale themselves and entering the Great British Beer Awards. They manage to unite the divided local community in the process. 

It is a very predictable and clichéd paint by numbers comedy which should be laugh out funny but isn’t despite the sterling efforts of its great cast, particularly Clunes and Mark Addy. 

While it celebrates the spirit of family and the power of the humble pint there isn’t enough drink to save Mother’s Pride.
MD
In cinemas March 6