“The Bride!” is a movie that I believe will confuse viewers. The film can be self-indulgent and does not seem to know what kind of picture it wants to be. Is it a romance, a crime flick, or a monster movie? The violence will be off-putting to some as well. Yet, despite this, the casting is almost perfect, and the acting can be rivetingly good.

The movie begins with a device that is both framing and intermittent throughout the film. Mary Shelley (Jessie Buckley) seems to be in a kind of limbo. She engages in a discussion about the creation of her most famous novel. She decides to create a woman who she temporarily names “Ida” (also Buckley) who will have to figure out her real name for herself.

Ida is a moll for the mob in Chicago in 1936. She is opinionated and outspoken, which is not a good survival strategy. She throws up on one of the henchmen and berates the boss sitting at the bar. She is ordered out. In the discussion with the henchmen outside, she falls down a staircase to her death.

Cut to Frankenstein’s monster (Christian Bale), who goes by Frank, walking along the Chicago streets. He uses a mask and hat to conceal his grotesque facial features.

Frank is seeking Dr. Euphronious. He goes to the medico’s place of business, only to discover that the Euphronious is a woman (Annette Benning). She has written papers on reinvigoration that Frank has read. Sitting at a table across from Dr. E, Greta (Jeannie Berlin) the maid and general factotum, sees Frank and shrieks.

Another twist is that Frank goes to movie theaters to see films starring Ronnie Reed (Jake Gyllenhaal) as a song-and-dance man in musicals. To say that Frank worships Reed is an understatement.

Frank discusses his chronic loneliness and how he seeks a companion whom he believes Dr. E can create. She would prefer to create the companion piecemeal but Frank insists that they get an intact corpse of a woman.

So he and Dr. E go to the graveyard and dig up what used to be Ida. She has suffered some limb damage from her fall down the stairs. Her hair is a disheveled mess and continues to be throughout the feature.

Back in Dr. E’s lab, they succeed in reviving Ida. She does not remember who she was or what her name is. Dr. E puts a leg brace on one of her broken legs.

The next morning at the breakfast table, a fight breaks out between Dr. E, who wants Ida to stay for a few days to be studied, and the Bride, who is having none of it. “I would prefer not to” is accompanied by the destruction of items on the table.

That night, Frank and his Bride escape out of Dr. E’s window and start a life of their own. They end up in bars where the demimonde congregate. After one such visit, two men harass the Bride and a drunk Frank kills them both in a most violent manner.

This causes the police to become involved. Detective Jake Wiles (Peter Sarsgaard) and his very able and organized assistant Myrna Mallow (Penelope Cruz) are the leads in the case. Will they find Frank and the Bride before more people die?

The movie was a strange concoction of competing themes and ideas. The end result is that it was unfocused. The screenwriters had a great idea: what does it mean to be two monsters in a society of non-monsters? But this idea gets subsumed by other storylines: the wild antics of Frank and his Bride, the police investigation (most of these scenes were incredibly boring), and extreme violence that happened for no reason. The topper had to be a musical sequence where Frank dances in a fantasy (or is it?).

The strangeness of the opening with Mary Shelley was disconcerting. It was difficult to follow her ramblings although it was evident that she was angry. The Shelley motif would pop up every so often like an unwanted visitor. The idea that the movie might be her fever dream seemed completely unnecessary to the story.

For director Maggie Gyllenhaal to cast her own brother in this film seemed very meta to me. When he pops on the screen for the first time, it is meant to be a wink-wink moment of sly recognition at the cleverness of this casting.

Jessie Buckley does a great job as Shelley/Ida/the Bride. She handles very (tedious) complicated dialogue expertly. I couldn’t tell if the writers or the director were responsible for what offered sounded like incoherent gibberish or for her overindulgent excesses in portraying her characters. In the scenes where she is honestly thoughtful, her true skill is on full display. But we get too few of these scenes compared to the whacked-out version of the Bride.

Christian Bale gives a thoughtful performance. He portrays Frank as both deeply lonely and discontent with his life. His primitive rages when he is drunk or angered are frighteningly real.

It is in the scenes where Frank and the Bride are together that we see how they try to cope with their plight. These often were very moving moments. I just wish that there were more of them.

Annette Bening is perfect as Dr. Euphronious. She tries to be as ethical as possible given her subject matter. She seems to truly care about Frank and the Bride. Berlin as her maid does not get much screen time, but excels when she does.

Sarsgaard tries to pull off the noir detective but does not quite pull it off. Cruz is at times almost robotic, but her charisma is undeniable. Her arc gives her character a chance to evolve and she shines when that happens.

The makeup on both the Bride and Frank is first-rate. I couldn’t tell from the few complete body shots we had of Frank if his twisted, sewn-up body was the result of visual effects or makeup. Seeing his twisted body helped you feel the agony of his existence. The Bride’s makeup was not quite as noteworthy.

As you can imagine, there are not many costume changes. But the period clothing helped give a feel for the 1930’s. The automobiles also were fun to watch.

All in all, a movie whose imagination affected the execution.

Three out of five stars

A lonely Frankenstein (Christian Bale) travels to 1930s Chicago to ask groundbreaking scientist Dr. Euphronious (five-time Oscar nominee Annette Bening) to create a companion for him. The two revive a murdered young woman and The Bride (Jessie Buckley) is born. What ensues is beyond what either of them imagined: Murder! Possession! A wild and radical cultural movement! And outlaw lovers in a wild and combustible romance!

Starring: Jessie Buckley, Christian Bale. Peter Sarsgaard, Annette Bening, Jake Gyllenhaal, Penélope Cruz
Directed by: Maggie Gyllenhaal
Written by: Maggie Gyllenhaal
Based on: Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus by Mary Shelley