Tag: movie references

THE BRIDE! – Review

If you love classic movies, THE BRIDE! is pure delight, fun with a brain that is a treat deluxe for those who love both classic movies and Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s original book “Frankenstein.” That description fits this writer and the novel is having a moment now, with Guillermo del Toro’s FRANKENSTEIN and now this film. But in this wild, smart and inventive film, director Maggie Gyllenhaal not only pays homage to the book, but the Frankenstein and particularly Bride of Frankenstein movies, along with a host of 1930s and 1940s films and genres, ranging from film noir to black-and-white musicals and gangster flicks, with a little more modern films like BONNIE AND CLYDE and YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN tossed in. Even author Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley herself, the brilliant teenager who wrote the original 1818 novel, appears as a character in the film.

All that plus a fabulous cast, led by Christian Bale and Jessie Buckley, featuring Annette Bening, Jake Gyllenhaal, Peter Sarsgaard and Penelope Cruz. The film sports a generous sprinkling of movie and even literary references, in dialog or visually, which adds a great deal of fun. And it is all done with an off-beat slight feminist twist that puts the spotlight on the The Bride.

Plus the ghost of author Mary Shelley possesses a gangster’s moll and a woman is the mad scientist in this tale. What more could you possibly want?

THE BRIDE is both clever and a very cinematic film. THE BRIDE! actually opens with the author Mary Shelley (played in a entertainingly crazy way by Jesse Buckley) speaking to us as a spirit from the grave. We see only Buckley’s face, in an oval and in black-and-white, like an antique photo in a locket, while the author spits rapid-fire vocabulary about her biography and literature. The author introduces our story, and then returns as occasional narrator or disruptive spirit. This begins when Shelley possesses, like a demon, a young blonde gangster’s moll named Ida (also Buckley) in 1930s Chicago. The possessed moll, when the author is in charge, spouts poetry and literary references, particularly mentioning Herman Melville’s character Bartleby, who sows chaos by refusing to do things, saying “I prefer not to,” a phrase that pops up continually.

After our (ultimately violent) intro to the woman who will become the Bride, we meet Frankenstein’s monster, played winningly by Christian Bale. A man in a hat pulled low to hide his face and with a scarf covering his lower face (a la Claude Rains in THE INVISIBLE MAN) shows up at a 1930s Chicago medical research facility, looking to speak to a particular scientist, a Dr. Euphronious. He’s turned away at first, but finally a woman comes out to talk to him. She reveals herself to be Dr. Euphronious (Annette Bening), as he removes his coverings and introduces himself as a Mr. Frankenstein (Bale). This lonely creation of a mad scientist (and an author) long ago asks the scientist for her help – to build a bride for him. She refuses at first but, good mad scientist that she is, Dr. Euphronious eventually agrees.

Thus launches the tale of the Bride and her Frankenstein, a far more complete story of the Bride than in James Whale’s classic film, including this Bride’s quest for a name, an identity, beyond just that one. The pair embark on an adventure and a journey that sends them out into the 1930s world, against the wishes of Dr. Euphonious, where they sample jazz clubs and movie houses, among other things, and then go on the run as outlaws, “Bonnie and Clyde”-style, after some people turn up dead.

Frank, as the Bride calls him, is movie-obsessed and particularly a fan of one dancing star (Jake Gyllenhaal) of movie musicals, which reveals that the “monster” is a bit of a romantic. When he’s feeling low, at trip to the movies to see his favorite star in one of his dance-filled musical romances or comedies lifts his spirits.

Their adventure is unpredictable, often violent and sometimes bloody, but it is also a monster of a love story. The Bride’s journey of self-discovery is a big part of this film but not the whole story. It is also a wild, entertaining ride, that also involved a pair of noir-ish detectives, played by Peter Sarsgaard and Penelope Cruz, on their trail, as well as gangster kingpins, corrupt officials, fancy parties with movie stars, and more. There is singing and dancing scenes, movie-going and movie houses, characters who find themselves in the movie (a la Buster Keaton), and a score that includes “Putting on the Ritz” (thank you, Mel Brooks) and Monster Mash.

The cast is great. Christian Bale is a marvelous Frankenstein, sweetly polite, even shy, but determined and endlessly resourceful. He is also a hopeless romantic when it comes to his Bride and to the movies he loves. Bale plays this movie-loving monster with such charm and grace, he is irresistible, and turns on extra magic in the dance sequences. Jessie Buckley is electrifying in her two-part role, as the wild, fast-talking and brainy author, who periodically possesses the Bride and as the sweet but confused newly-created Bride, who does not even know her name, much less who she is, or should be. The couple waver between love and her desire to be her own person. And along the way, her rule-breaking launches a social movement of women who want to break free of their restraints in this sexist time, women who show their colors by staining their mouths with ink, to look like hers.

Annette Bening is a charmer as well as the crusty, off-beat doctor, who we suspect has secrets and a history that goes unspoken. As the noir detectives, Peter Sarsgaard and Penelope Cruz also are wonderful, with Sarsgaard playing a world-weary soul with some hidden pain, and Cruz an ambitious detective who is the real brains of the team but who has to pose as her partner’s secretary rather than his protege due to the sexism of the era.

THE BRIDE! is entertaining, smart, thought-provoking, twisting, and a cleverly constructed creation of borrowed parts (much like Frankenstein) from countless classic films, film history, literature and even a little echo of the “Me Too” movement. THE BRIDE! is a wow of a piece of cinema, and certainly a must-see for any fan of either classic movies or Mary Shelley’s classic Gothic horror novel. Just great fun.

THE BRIDE! opens in theaters on Friday, Mar. 6, 2026.

RATING: 4 out of 4 stars

REMINISCENCE – Review

(L-r) HUGH JACKMAN as Nick Bannister, REBECCA FERGUSON as Mae and THANDIWE NEWTON as Watts in Warner Bros. Pictures’ action thriller “REMINISCENCE,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release.
Photo courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures. © 2021 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. All Rights Reserved.

REMINISCENCE stars Hugh Jackman, Rebecca Ferguson and Thandiwe Newton in a twisty sci-fi mystery that is part BLADE RUNNER, part TOTAL RECALL – both films loosely based on novels by imaginative science fiction writer Phillip K. Dick – which then goes Hitchcock by way of Chinatown with a deep noir flavor. Set in a flooded future Miami, where the streets are navigated like the canals of Venice and no one goes out until dark due to the heat, this is classic noir set in a gritty post-war, post climate-disaster dystopia. Essentially an homage to Hollywood classics, of the 1940s particularly, and packed with film references, REMINISCENSE is film noir wrapped in a sci-fi setting.

Dark, noirish, stylish, with that classic narration, it is a story of love, obsession, haunting memories, deception, illusions, and truth – and memories extracted by futuristic technology. If all that sounds like an intriguing brew, REMINISCENSE will hook you and take you for its twisty ride.

The mystery/thriller is the directorial debut of director/writer/producer Lisa Joy, the show-runner and co-creator of “Westworld” along with husband Jonathan Nolan. Joy, who was inspired by a wish to explore the power of memory in her original screenplay, brought many of her “Westworld” collaborators with her to this project, including director of photography Paul Cameron and star Thandiwe Newton. Angela Sarafyan, another “Westworld” cast member, also has a smaller role in the film.

Although REMINISCENSE is a sci-fi tale set in a climate-disaster future, film noir mystery is the aspect that dominants. The film is filled to the brim with film references, which is part of its fun, but it also delivers an interesting update on the classic femme fatale character. The twisty plot does not always completely makes sense but the film scores better on atmosphere and character as it blends elements of mystery, romance, thriller, and noir, with meditations on memory, time and illusions. The film aims high and while it does not really hit the mark, it does deliver good, if imperfect, entertainment for those who enjoy classic noir and sci-fi.

This noirish detective tale takes place in a dystopian future Miami, post-civil war and post-climate disaster, where streets are flooded by rising sea levels and life is lived at night to avoid the intolerable heat. Sunsets have become dawns, sunrises signal day’s end, and staying out past that has to be done in the shade, and not too late.

In this harsh world, Nick Bannister (Hugh Jackman) has built a business helping clients escape the dreary present to relive memories of a better time, using advanced technology and special skills he learned for interrogation when he served in the military during the war. The machine lets them access their memories, which are projected on a 3-D stage, as Nick safely guides and monitors his dreaming, drugged clients as they float in water-filled tank. Besides his reminiscencing clients, Nick uses his interrogation skills to help the local Miami police in investigations as a private detective.

Nick’s memory services should be a lucrative business in this grim world but Nick has a soft spot for his old veteran buddies, especially the wounded ones, and tends not to charge them, much to the dismay of his business partner and fellow war buddy Watts (Thandiwe Newton). The cynical, hard-drinking Watts is damaged goods, haunted by a fatal mistake she made during the war, memories she drowns in the bottle.

Nick and Watts operate their memory business out of a run-down warehouse space, off a side street that is always slightly flooded. But their routine lives are disrupted and everything changes after a beautiful woman named Mae (Rebecca Ferguson) turns up, seeking help remembering where she left her keys. It seems an odd request for what is probably an expensive service but Nick is too dazzled by Mae’s beauty to question the mysterious woman. Despite Watt’s worries, and a touch of jealousy due to the secret torch she is carrying for her co-worker, Nick quickly falls for Mae, and when she disappears, he falls into obsessed depression. The obsession takes Nick into a seedy underworld of criminal kingpins and corrupt cops in his search of Mae.

Actually, REMINISCENCE does not dwell much on either the climate-impacted world we see all around us or details of the civil war it references. Instead goes straight for its mystery thriller tale of obsession, love, damaged souls and the power of memory.

Hugh Jackman, as the film’s central character, plays a jaded soul who has his life upended by a mysterious woman, a character that draws on Humphrey Bogart in CASABLANCA and James Stewart in VERTIGO, among other influences, although Jackman handles his role well and creates his own character. He and Ferguson generate romantic chemistry in their scenes together, but we sense something hidden in Mae, which keep us guessing about her through the film.

While Hugh Jackman has the central role as the hardened detective with a soft heart who becomes obsessed with her, the film offers a different twist on the femme fatale character, one who goes beyond the usual one-dimensional type, a more interesting character than we expect. Mae, played well by Rebecca Ferguson, starts out like most noir femme fatales – appealing, mysterious, haunting but with a dangerous undercurrent. Classically these characters turn out to be either good or bad, but mostly are seen through the lens of the male gaze and point of view of the film’s protagonist. But Ferguson’s Mae is more complicated, more her own person, a woman coping with tough circumstances and using the tools she has to survive.

This femme fatale role is one you could easily see Thandiwe Newton in, but instead Newton plays the supporting part of Nick’s damaged partner, haunted by her past mistakes and harboring a secret longing for Nick. The casting is less expected, but gives Newton a rare chance to flex other acting muscles. Other cast members also lend good support, with Cliff Curtis a standout as corrupt cop Boothe, effectively menacing Jackman’s Nick and Ferguson’s Mae, and lingering in our memory even when not on screen.

REMINISCENCE is visually stunning, a future Miami where rising sea levels have flooded the streets and rising temperatures have driven life to the nighttime. Director of photography Paul Cameron gives is haunting, even majestic, images of this dark, watery world – images that will stick in your memory. In “Westworld,” Cameron created a visual world that was a perfect reference to the Western genre, with a sci-fi touches, and does the same here for the noir genre. Interior scenes are stylish and noir-drenched, with slanting light, abundant shadows and ever-present ceiling fans.

One feels both classic Hollywood and the Nolan influence in this world. In REMINISCENCE’s Miami, most people live in a sodden world but the wealthy live in the few dry spots, real estate they grabbed early on, behind flood walls that keep out the water, adding an income-inequality edge to their tough lives. Some scenes take place in the off-shore, where houses on stilts are now islands and in a similarly flooded New Orleans. The images create an effective, complete alternate world.

You have got to love film noir to really give in to REMINISCENCE, and if the genre does not appeal, this film is likely not for you. Although this is a sci-fi tale set in a climate-disaster future – and the imagery of that world is impressive and memorable – REMINISCENCE is the film noir mystery at its heart. Hugh Jackman and Rebecca Ferguson deliver nice performances, as well as Thandiwe Newton and Cliff Curtis, in the film’s twisty thriller blend of mystery, obsession, and romance, with meditations on memory, time and illusions. The film aims high, and while it does not really hit that mark, it does deliver good entertainment for those up for its classic noir/sci-fi mash-up.

REMINISCENCE opens Friday, August 20, at the Chase Cinema and various other theaters.

RATING: 3 out of 4 stars