What was that?: Jessie Buckley in ‘The Bride!’.
THE BRIDE! ***1/2 (126 minutes) MA
The endless appeal of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein – published in 1818, would you believe – continues apace, with renewed vigour and lots of dancing in this very inventive, highly enjoyable, stylishly jagged, marvellously off-centre Gothic frolic riffing merrily on the classic 208 year-old premise and on the 1935 James Whale classic Bride of Frankenstein.
Brandishing a sureness of touch largely absent from her middling 2021 debut The Lost Daughter, writer/director Maggie Gyllenhaal sets the piece in 1930s America.
Beginning in Chicago, Frank, Dr Frankenstein’s stitched-together, DIY monster (Christian Bale in yet another versatility flex) sees Dr Euphronious (a wonderfully Annette Bening, another great veteran leaning into their vintage) for a very special service.
Seems Frank is keen for intimate company and asks the good doctor to locate a fresh female corpse to reanimate for his personal purposes.
Luckily for him, Ida (Jessie Buckley), a feisty young woman with a manic manner and a rather loud voice, has upset the violent gangsters in her circle and upon her exit from a goon-infested venue has an accident that sends her into the great beyond.
Digging her up, old-school style – a lovely salute to the immortal 1931 James Whale Frankenstein film – Ida is duly taken back to the lab where the magic is done, again old-school style.
Before long some justifiable homicides have the pair on the run, with two detectives (Peter Skarsgard and Penelope Cruz) in pursuit as Frank and Ida – aka “The Bride” – hit the road, echoing the flight of Bonnie and Clyde.
Neatly infused into the story are Frank’s adoration of Fred Astaire-like movie star Ronnie Reed (Jake Gyllenhaal, who clearly did his homework) and a punchy feminist twang where, Joker-like, Ida inspires women everywhere to rise up. (A reminder here that the promise of a #metoo sub-genre sadly never really took off).
Stylistically, the film is wild and deliberately erratic, as all cinematic thrill rides should be. While the narrative is basically linear, Gyllenhaal swerves all over the road to keep you perked – though, admittedly, some might find such modus operandi tiring.
Bale is good as usual, but the film belongs to Jessie Buckley who puts in a maniacal centrepiece performance.
The film’s heightened design work is terrific with special kudos to the make-up, where the continuity is atypically exacting.
And, of course, it’s always great watching a seasoned doyen such as Annette Bening knock it out of the park. How has this brilliant actress never won an Oscar?
HOW TO MAKE A KILLNG ***1/2 (105 minutes) M
In the mood for some devilish fun? Then check out this winning, biting black comedy about retribution, greed and poetic justice.
On the eve before his execution, convicted murderer Becket Redfellow (Glen Powell) unfurls his life story to a priest, explaining how a nice guy has ended up on death row.
His mother was part of a wealthy dynasty primed to inherit a chunk of the family estate, only her marriage to a man deemed unworthy iced her out of the family’s favour.
Thanks to a special trust Becket was still entitled to a fortune but stood at the wrong end of a succession queue, meaning he would have to outlive all his relatives before seeing a cent.
An encounter with childhood crush Julia (Margaret Qualley, whose resemblance to her mother Andie McDowell grows stronger with each film) plants in his head the idea of, well, knocking his relos off one-by-one.
A very entertaining, engaging comic ride written and very ably directed by John Patton Ford (who gave us the terrific 2022 crime thriller Emily the Criminal with Aubrey Plaza), the film has a cracking pace and some very funny set pieces, including an early snorter set on a luxury yacht.
Thankfully, there’s also some nicely thought through mental chewing gum about obsession and greed as Becket weighs up whether mountains of money can actually add happiness to a life that is already contented and successful.
As stated clearly in the closing credits, the film is inspired by the classic 1949 Alec Guinness black comedy Kind Hearts and Coronets and serves as a prime case study about how to do remakes – even loose ones – properly.
Rather than try to slavishly replicate or recycle a beloved film, what this cheeky film does is honour the central concept of the original while rethinking and updating the piece from the ground up.
As is the case here, such an approach produces a film that is not only respectful of its source by maintaining the key themes, it allows enough creative invention for it to – most importantly – be its own thing.
TRUE SOUTH *** (80 minutes) M
Unflinching and often raw, this very good documentary recounts the tragic 1998 Sydney-to-Hobart yacht race as the crew of the supermaxi Andoo Comanche prepares for the punishing 2022 race. The training regimen is tough, with a heart-stopping incident involving a rival yacht covered by several cameras. Some of the anecdotes in this extremely well-photographed doco are quite moving, yet the key exchange comes when it is explained to the crew how important communication is when trying to control a 100 foot boat that weighs 30 tonne.