Review: Too many films inspire janky ‘Bride!’

In her latest, “The Bride!,” she references movies from the 1930s, “Bonnie and Clyde” and, of course, “The Bride of Frankenstein.”

The film is supposed to give voice to women (the bride of Frankenstein didn’t speak) and talk about violence in the process. It also shows where corruption is rampant and isn’t afraid to make some contemporary ties.

But the film is so scattered it’s hard to conclude this is a masterpiece that deserves attention or preservation.

Jessie Buckley (who’s great in “Hamnet”) plays Ida, a blonde flapper of sorts who gets involved with mobsters, dies and becomes reanimated, thanks to “the monster” (as he used to be called) and a scientist who just happens to have a laboratory in her house.

Once rewired, Ida (who later goes by several names) and Frank (as the character played by Christian Bale likes to be called) go on their own road trip, watching the movies of their favorite actor (played by Jake Gyllenhaal). How they read timetables and figure out the itinerary is anyone’s guess, but they do meet the actor and give detectives (played by Peter Sarsgaard and Penelope Cruz) clues to figure out where they’re headed.

Maggie Gyllenhaal (who also wrote the screenplay) makes frequent references to Mary Shelley, the author of the original, and uses costuming to suggest films like “Top Hat.” The black slash of makeup across Buckley’s face is to reinforce the Shelley connection (ink, perhaps?) and show how something can snowball if enough people get behind it. Look closely and you’ll think this bears more than a passing resemblance to “Joker” or its sequel.

The relationship between Frank and Ida could have carried this, without all the other trappings. Bale, in fact, doesn’t get to do much, even though he’s an actor who usually digs deeper than most. The all-star cast is solid as well, but it isn’t given much to help us understand why this film needed to be made.

Clearly, the “public domain” lure of an old property sold studio executives before they read the script. “The Bride!” doesn’t settle for laughs (although it gets them), tears (they’re there) or violence (which it has plenty of).

Often, it seems like something you’d get if you left your phone on a table and somebody decided to shoot a video. It’s not that crude, of course, but it seems just as disjointed. Gyllenhaal should have given her stellar company a shot at fixing it before shooting a single frame. Then, the black-and-white intro, the flickering lights and the underwritten supporting roles might not have seemed so, well, odd.

Like “Mank,” there’s a great movie here waiting to be unearthed. But this ain’t it.