Mate

“The Bride!” is a maniacal assemblage of ’30s musicals, ’40s noirs, 19th century literature and 21st century ideology. Every wacky second, you’re well aware how perilously close it is to falling apart at the seams. This spiritual sequel to “Frankenstein” is a romantic tale of obsession, possession and fantasy — adjectives that also apply to its filmmaker, Maggie Gyllenhaal, who expends massive quantities of energy jolting it to life. She succeeds by the skin of her teeth.

The monster’s missus comes with as much narrative anticipation as Godot. Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel has Dr. Frankenstein bicker with his creature about her potential existence before deciding against it in fear that “she might become ten thousand times more malignant than her mate.” Over a hundred years later, the debate continued, raging through nearly all of 1935’s “Bride of Frankenstein” which finally introduces Elsa Lanchester and her sky-high bouffant five minutes before the end credits, just enough time for her to make an iconic impression before her arranged husband blows them both to smithereens. Boris Karloff laments, “She hate me.” Lanchester’s Bride never speaks and quite possibly never knows what is happening to her at all.

Gyllenhaal’s empowerment story, meanwhile, feels like an unhinged scream. Jessie Buckley (who starred in Gyllenhaal’s debut, “The Lost Daughter”) tackles the dual roles of the Bride and Shelley, a hat tip to Lanchester, who did the same thing. The action starts in Shelley’s grave where she’s spent centuries seething about the sequel she never dared to write, then cuts to an American nightclub, where her spirit suddenly possesses a drunken strumpet named Ida (Buckley) — not smoothly but herky-jerky, with the angry author causing this gangster’s moll to go on the fritz. Her accent alternates mid-sentence from city gal to snidely British, Ida loudly accusing a mob boss of murdering women. She’s right and she’s next.

Our setting is 1936 Chicago, but this is an exaggerated, fictional world, not ours or even Karloff’s. Elsewhere in town, the original creature, played by Christian Bale, has lurched here from Austria still on his lonely quest for companionship. (For simplicity’s sake, he goes by Frank.) He begs the ethically gray Dr. Euphronius (Annette Bening) to help him finally experience what he chivalrously calls, “a garden of pleasure.” The blunter and crasser Euphronius asks if Frank has a specific shape of mammaries in mind. (Her maid, played by Jeannie Berlin, is a riot.)

This Bride comes alive roughly and rudely not having given her consent either. Regardless, now that she’s here, she still has to figure out her next move, with or without Frank, and often without key pieces of information. Frank has convinced her she’s an amnesiac. Also, somehow, she doesn’t even know that she’s dead.

The theme is, of course, a woman’s right to choose. But what’s interesting about Gyllenhaal’s approach is that she expands Ida’s options beyond an enthusiastic yes and a priggish no into a dim sum menu that includes a dubious yes, an asterisked yes and a no that rejects even having to answer the question. She also overuses Bartleby the Scrivener’s line, “I would prefer not to.” I would prefer not to hear that quote a dozen times in two hours, but neither I nor the Bride get exactly what we want.

A perversity in the script is that Frank is a manipulator and a gaslighter but overall a pretty good dude. Their bond is messy and thrilling, with one of the most delightful romantic montages in ages. There’s a great scene where Frank exposes his unbeating heart to her and gets rejected, yet he laughs with delight because the Bride’s stubborn spirit is exactly what he likes about her.

The Bride also looks dynamite in her bias-cut coral dress and peekaboo black lace bra. Her zapping turns her entire head of hair — not just a streak — shocking white à la Jean Harlow, and leaves an oddly-appealing black blotch on her cheek. It’s a fabulous look, at once sexy and frightful, with an element of cartoonishness as the movie sends her speeding around the country pursued by gangsters and the police, changing stolen cars but never her clothes.

The movie makes no secret of its phony mechanics. In one scene, the Bride is the most famous outlaw in America; in the next, a cop doesn’t recognize her at all. There are several moments that force you to accept that the characters can become psychic at will, including one where Frank somehow mind-controls a party to dance the jitterbug — heck, we almost believe that he invented it — and the smart move is just to give in and enjoy the number.

Whatever Gyllenhaal wants to do, she does, which becomes its own act of captivation and reckless empowerment. It helps that Buckley and Bale are terrific, as is the ensemble at large. The full force of Lawrence Sher’s cinematography, Karen Murphy’s production design and Hildur Guðnadóttir’s orchestral score is fabulous, combining to make something seedy, moody and extravagant.

Gyllenhaal’s love for other variations of this story is right up there onscreen with brash callbacks to Mel Brooks’ 1974 “Young Frankenstein” and the underrated “Frankenhooker.” Yet “The Bride!” isn’t just assembled from her passion for those movies. It seems to be made of every movie: a wild and playful and overbearing ambulation of references.

Almost every role is a Frankencharacter of the director’s cinematic obsessions, like Penelope Cruz’s lady detective who is named for “The Thin Man’s” Myrna Loy, acts like “His Girl Friday’s” Rosalind Russell, and dresses like Barbara Stanwyck in “Double Indemnity.” I suspect that Gyllenhaal’s favorite movie might be the same as my own, the bitterly nostalgic ’80s-does-’30s Steve Martin musical “Pennies From Heaven.” Watch it and tell me if you agree and even if you don’t, at least you’ll have seen one of the greatest films of all time.

There’s a scene in which Frank meets his own idol, an alt-world version of Fred Astaire (played by Gyllenhaal’s brother Jake, who is good at mugging and singing), and vomits his fandom at him until the actor recoils. The intensity of devotion can feel a bit like that. It also exposes that our culture is ready for its own shock of invention. Shelley spawned the entire genre of modern science fiction; today’s talents often feel like remix artists.

Like the mad scientists she’s sending up, Gyllenhaal goes too far. She triply underlines her feminist themes and nearly sabotages her own clever creation. Ironically, she doesn’t trust the audience to think for itself either. The overkill hits its nadir when the Bride repeatedly wails the survivors’ hashtag, “Me too!” But grab a scalpel and cut 10 minutes out of it and “The Bride!” would be a rip-roaring dazzler. This monster is more than alive, it’s allliiiiiive.

PHILADELPHIA — In the first one-on-one debate of the 1988 Democratic presidential campaign, front-runner Michael S. Dukakis and his sole remaining adversary, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, both contended Friday night that it was too soon to discuss whether Dukakis should ask Jackson to be his running mate.

But the fact that the subject came up several times during the hourlong televised encounter, in advance of Tuesday’s presidential primary here in the Keystone State, reflected the degree to which Gov. Dukakis’ victory in the contest is widely considered all but assured. At the same time, the questions about Jackson’s becoming the first black to run on the national ticket of a major party were a measure of the impact the civil rights leader has had on the Democratic campaign.

‘Are You Interested?’

For their own differing reasons–Jackson because he is unwilling to have his presidential candidacy written off and Dukakis because he is leery of overconfidence–both men sought to dismiss the idea. Nevertheless, Dukakis twice during the debate leaned over to Jackson when the subject of the vice presidency was raised and asked: “Are you interested?”

While his comments brought laughter, as they were intended to, they also will inevitably fan speculation about what is certain to become the preoccupation of the two candidates and other Democratic leaders until the Atlanta convention in July is concluded.

When he was asked if he would accept an offer from Dukakis, Jackson said: “It’s a bit premature to be giving out coronation roses for the governor and taps for me.”

Jackson asserted that he and Dukakis were really in a “neck-and-neck contest,” contending that he trailed the governor by only about 170,000 votes after weeks of campaigning and made plain that he was not prepared to call it quits.

Pride of Accomplishment

“We’re sitting here side by side,” Jackson said of himself and Dukakis at one point, signaling not only his pride at what he had accomplished but his determination to press on. “But we’re not equal because I’ve come from furthest back to get here.”

And when Dukakis was asked about his ability to run well in the South, as a Northeastern governor, Jackson interjected: “With Mike Dukakis on my ticket we will win the South.”

Dukakis, when asked if he would choose Jackson to be his running mate, said: “My job right now is to work hard to win this nomination, and it is by no means won.”

In their first encounter since last Tuesday’s New York primary effectively eliminated Tennessee Sen. Albert Gore Jr. from the race and significantly fattened Dukakis’ lead in the race for delegates, both candidates aimed most of their shots past each other at the Reagan Administration and at the presumptive Republican standard-bearer, Vice President George Bush.

Thus when he was questioned about his plans to expand industry in Pennsylvania and other states that are in worse economic shape than his own Massachusetts, Dukakis criticized Reagan for threatening to veto the trade bill passed Thursday by the House because of its provision requiring a 60-day advance notice of plant shutdowns or layoffs.

Hits Reagan on Terrorism

And he also used a question on terrorism to condemn the Reagan Administration for trying to trade arms to Iran in the hope of gaining the release of U.S. hostages as “the worst possible thing we could have done.”

And Jackson attacked the Reagan Administration for its dealings with Panamanian strongman Manuel A. Noriega, whom he denounced as a drug dealer, and for what he charged was its general ineffectiveness in combatting drugs.

In one of the rare occasions that either of the two Democrats challenged each other, Jackson pressed Dukakis on whether the governor would apply his terrorist policy to South Africa after Dukakis said he would never negotiate with terrorists, even to save the lives of hostages and also said that if necessary he would order military strikes against terrorist base camps and support bases in other countries.

“If we are serious about international terrorism,” Dukakis said, the United States might have to launch such strikes. “I think a President who is serious about this,” Dukakis said, “can work with our allies and the international community to mount a very serious effort against terrorism.”

Questioned on South Africa

Jackson then contended that South Africa had committed aggression against several of the “front-line” African states on its borders and, declaring that such tactics amounted to “state terrorism,” asked Dukakis what his response would be.

Dukakis said he would be “very tough” on South Africa and would impose economic sanctions against that country but refused to say whether he would take military action.

Jackson also subtly needled Dukakis after the governor took credit for the prosperity in Massachusetts, which he referred to as “an economic miracle.”

Jackson noted that Dukakis and Massachusetts had the advantage of substantial federal investment and said that Democratic Gov. Robert P. Casey of Pennsylvania, who was in attendance at the debate sponsored by the state Democratic Party, “could have a boom too” under similar conditions.