SHELLEY ON STEROIDS … PLUS

The Bride could have just as easily been called The Channel, for if you try to imagine combining Christine Cagney as a 1930s wannabe, add a reincarnated Emma Stone-like caricature of a female Mary Shelley creature shown through the prism of Hollywood film noir along with Frankenstein’s monster (with a tip of the top hat to Peter Boyle in the Mel Brook’s film Young Frankenstein), then add Fred Astaire … but have him played by the award-winning dramatic actor, Jake Gyllenhaal from Brokeback Mountain … then you have … well, wait a minute … then you must also add Mary Shelley herself getting into the head of the actress who, for her work in Hamnet won the 2026 Oscar for Best Performance, and then … finally, you just may have channeled Maggie Gyllenhaal’s first movie as a director in over five years.

It is good. It is also weird … but in a good way. To begin with Jessie Buckley is a sure nominee again and, only because Emma Stone has recently visited this territory on her way to an Oscar for Poor Things, is there a chance for some other actress at the Academy Awards in 2027. As if her outlandish performance as Frankenstein’s bride itself was not enough, Ms. Buckley has the added element of playing Frankenstein’s author, Mary Shelley. Two roles in one flick? Over the years the Academy is often a sucker for that.

Christian Bale as the monster is, as almost always, S-O-L-I-D. And who knew, Jake Gyllenhaal, the director’s brother, could sing and dance? To round out the family affair, Peter Sarsgaard, the director’s husband, plays a police detective/mentor to Penelope Cruz who adds cache to her role as an aspiring detective. Lest it go unsaid, the overall look of the movie is top-drawer … assuming one’s top drawer is replete with messy underwear.

The screenplay is chaotic to say the least. An arch villain is set up … fleshed out in a key scene … and then? He just flat out disappears from the narrative sans explanation. Is Ms. Gyllenhaal thinking sequel? Too soon? Ya think?

There is a lot of other stuff that just sort of happens out of nowhere, but in this case, I found myself going with the flow. I mean, why be picky when clearly someone is working so hard to show me a good time?

The feminist material is on the money. Annette Bening is a wonderful choice as the scientist who helps the monster find his bride, especially in contrast to her sleepwalking through Dutton Ranch, but it is the outlandish, unrestricted performance by the fantastic Jessie Buckley that dominates the two plus hours of this HBO presentation.

See it, but prepare yourself in advance for an eclectic, often goofy … while politically correct, motion picture. You want different? This movie offers that up ... in spades!

Something more serious than monster noir comes in the form of a new series on HULU entitled Furious. It is an excellent police procedural with female leads aplenty so … as some might observe … it is right up my street.

Elizabeth Meriwether, who did such an impressive job with her series, Dying For Sex, created and produced this series which when fully released will have eight episodes in its first season.

A female serial killer stalked by a former NYPD detective … a woman now working for the FBI with troubles aplenty of her own … as I indicated … my kind of show … when it is done right, and this is about as “right” as it gets.

I am sorry I cannot get as worked up about Widow’s Bay on Apple TV. Matthew Rhys is good in this series, but the horror genre is just not my bag. Try to soften it by making a “horror-comedy”? I dunno, I think that might be possible … maybe even what Maggie Gyllenhaal would call The Bride. That was outrageous enough to be good. Widow’s Bay just sorta isn’t.

To sum up. Furious is about as close as you can get to must-see TV, The Bride is a hoot, and Widow’s Bay is none-of-the-above.

OMG, somehow Rooster missed out on my piece about shows with an animal in the title, and then (my bad) it got all but forgotten here. No more. It is a very cute show ... not great, but (almost) great enough. Steve Carell is spot on as the leading man, the remainder of the ensemble is very good, and the show is properly light-hearted. It is not going to change television history … it is probably going to be as easily forgotten by the folks at the Emmy awards as it was here, but that is not fair. Sometimes life just isn’t.

Rooster means well, I liked it, but I did not LOVE it, and … worst of all … I sorta forgot it after I sat through the 10 episodes on HBO. But don’t let me discourage you; try it. Cute premise. You could do worse ... Widow’s Bay for instance.

           

 

Barney Rosenzweig