24 frames per second

Think of Frankenstein’s creation — assembled from assorted body parts and brought to life by its creator. And like Adam (as Frankenstein’s creation refers to himself in one exchange in the book), the creation has in it, elements of the creator. Technically, the sentences above ought to suffice as a summary of Maggie Gyllenhaal’s The Bride! — a film that plays like a postmodern fever dream of someone who grew up around the movies but viewed them through a feminist lens.

Is it a film about what is viewed as monstrous, and what truly is? Is it a film about why we love the movies? Is it a film about women trying to make it in a man’s world, trying to be heard? It would be safe to say that the last of those constitutes the film’s beating heart, but the body of the film is assembled from some very disparate parts. Imagine a plot that Yorgos Lanthimos might come up with, the visual aesthetic of Baz Luhrmann on LSD, and the film-love of Quentin Tarantino.

The film opens with Mary Shelley speaking of her creation, and how she didn’t get to tell the story she wanted to, yet. She then goes on to possess a girl named Ida at a restaurant who, she notices, is beginning to display some cracks in her psyche through which she can enter. The girl suddenly starts acting possessed — she speaks like a 1930s Chicago showgirl and the celebrated author from a hundred years prior at the same time. Five minutes later, she’s dead. Not long after, Frankenstein’s creation (who has now named himself after his creator, maybe just to tweak the noses of all those in the audience who often confuse the two) approaches a doctor to request a reanimated bride. They dig up a body from a potter’s field and reanimate it — this turns out to be Ida. However, when Ida wakes up, she has no memory of who she is, except at odd moments when she involuntarily speaks like both the Ida she was, and the Mary Shelley who possesses her. I will not describe what happens after this, except to say that the proceedings have a coherent emotional arc, but not a coherent anything else. (I will, however, say that the premise reminded me of Moondram Pirai, which for all I know the writer-director has seen and been inspired by.)

Gyllenhaal’s love for films, and women in film, suffuses the proceedings. In the opening sequence, Ida calls out to a gangster named Lupino. Those of you who are movie buffs would chuckle at the reference to Ida Lupino, one of the few woman directors in Hollywood a hundred or so years ago. (Amazing how much has changed in the century since, no?) A bit later, you encounter a detective played by Penelope Cruz, who introduces herself as Myrna Malloy, obviously a reference to Myrna Loy, an actress of whom the Wikipedia summary says: “known for her ability to adapt to her screen partner’s acting style”. At one point, Frankenstein — a big fan of a Fred Astaire type dancing star — names Ida as Ginger, a reference to Astaire’s co-star who once famously said, “Everything he did, I did backwards and in high heels.” It’s not just women in film but also literature. Mary Shelley aside, there’s also a shot of Buckley’s head inside a Bell Jar.

Get the message yet?

The film’s subject seems to be women searching for their identity: Ida is in the process of discovering who she is. Sometimes, in the manner that something is defined by what it is not, her clearest statements are about what she will not do. Or, as she often says — quoting Melville’s Bartleby the Scrivener — she would prefer not to. Sometimes, women become who they are by emerging from out of a man’s shadow — Ida from Frankenstein’s, Myrna from her colleague’s. Sometimes, women are defined by how they speak up. (There’s a running gag about Myrna finding that rooms full of men seldom even hear her voice, and Lupino seems to have his unique way of silencing opposition.)

In a slightly more meta sense, this is also a film about the director and her star announcing themselves. Jessie Buckley gives a performance that BURNS up the screen, and Maggie Gyllenhaal establishes herself as a director capable of not only having a singular vision, but also of making exactly the film she wants to make. You may or may not like the output, but not one frame of what is on screen is accidental.

I have described what the film is, best as I can. But not if I liked it. So, rather than tell you directly how I feel about it, let me quote an exchange from the spectacular pilot episode of The Marvelous Mrs Maisel, again a show about a woman making it in a man’s world.

There is a scene where Midge Maisel encounters Lenny Bruce, a famous standup comedian, and asks him if he loves doing standup. And he says, “Let me put it like this. If there is anything else in the entire world that I could do, I would do it. Anything. I’m talking dry cleaners to the Klan, anything… It’s a terrible, terrible job. It should not exist.”

“But do you love it,” Midge persists.

Lenny shrugs his shoulders in a gesture of helplessness and walks away.

“Yeah, he loves it,” whispers Midge to herself.