Review

Let me be upfront and admit to admiring the artistry and audacity of Maggie Gyllenhaal's overhaul of James Whale's 1935 classic, The Bride of Frankenstein. This film refuses to be ignored, pulsing with a manic, punk-rock energy. Unfortunately, in the world of cinema, "admiring" does not always equate to "liking." Despite its technical prowess, The Bride! is difficult to like as a cohesive piece of entertainment. Bold, divisive, and occasionally exhausting, it mostly rejects traditional narrative storytelling in favor of a collage of visually arresting, oddly conceived moments that often feel like they belong to entirely different movies.

At any given instant, The Bride! is as likely to be paying homage to the Gothic expressionism of Whale as it is to the slapstick irreverence of Mel Brooks. Gyllenhaal includes two very obvious Young Frankenstein callbacks - one involving a "Puttin' on the Ritz" sequence - that feel less like tributes and more like tonal disruptions. By jumping from high-stakes existentialism to campy parody, the movie loses its emotional anchor, making it difficult for the audience to maintain empathy for the characters.

The original 1935 film began with a meta-prologue in which Mary Shelley (played by the "Bride" herself, Elsa Lanchester) set the stage for the story to follow. Gyllenhaal attempts a similar structural trick here, with Jessie Buckley taking on the dual role of the legendary author and the titular creature. However, this goes beyond a mere stylistic homage. Gyllenhaal unwisely turns Shelley into an unhinged spectral entity who possesses the body of a Depression-era call girl named Ida. Following this possession, Ida-Shelley begins acting with a demonic energy that eventually leads to a grisly accident: she is thrown down a flight of stairs, breaking her neck and providing the "raw material" for the experiment to come.

Enter Frankenstein's Creature (Christian Bale), the man-made behemoth who has been wandering the planet in solitude for more than a century. Now, dying of loneliness, he arrives in Chicago seeking a consultation with the "mad scientist" Dr. Euphronious (Annette Bening). He arrives with a singular, desperate request: make him a mate. Euphronious, seduced by some of the same impulses that drove Victor Frankenstein, agrees, although the methodology has shifted. Instead of stitching together a patchwork quilt of different corpses, they settle on re-animating a single, intact body: Ida's. Once brought back to life, this new Bride is considerably more verbal and volatile than Lanchester's iconic, hissing version. Before long, she and "Frank" are on the lam, traveling from the gritty streets of Chicago toward New York. It's a transition that turns the movie into a monstrous Bonnie and Clyde.

In many ways, The Bride! functions more as an offbeat, nihilistic love story than a traditional monster movie or horror film. The best scenes are the quietest ones, where Frank and his new companion get to know one another while wrestling with heavy existential questions about what it means to be "born" into a world that fears you. The action scenes are perfunctory and lack tension. The stylized violence is dialed back, with the gore being more restrained than the film's pre-release publicity suggested.

The film's "road trip" structure causes the narrative to wander aimlessly at times. Gyllenhaal introduces far too many subplots that ultimately lead to narrative dead-ends, including a distracting thread involving a Chicago gangster and his henchmen. We also spend an inordinate amount of time with a pair of detectives, played by Peter Sarsgaard and Penélope Cruz, whose investigation feels disconnected from the central emotional arc.

While Gyllenhaal's feminist bona fides are clearly on display - particularly in the Bride's rejection of the "of Frankenstein" suffix and Detective Myrna Mallow's (Cruz) struggle for equality within the police hierarchy - some of these themes feel heavy-handed. Attempts to shoe-horn in a "Me-Too" motif are forced and lead into a narrative dead-end. Feminism in cinema often works best when it is seamlessly integrated into the fabric of the story rather than presented through overt, "in-your-face" sermonizing.

In casting The Bride!, Gyllenhaal surrounded herself with familiar actors, starting with her The Dark Knight co-star, Christian Bale, and Jessie Buckley, whom she directed in The Lost Daughter. Also appearing are her husband, Peter Sarsgaard, and her brother, Jake. Of the ensemble, Buckley has the showiest and most demanding role. Alternating between subdued curiosity and frenetic rage, her interpretation of the title character often transcends the messy script. Bale, conversely, provides a grounded, soulful counterpoint; his version of the creature is a weary man-monster who is simply tired of running from pitchforks.

Ultimately, The Bride! has "cult classic" written all over it. It possesses very little mainstream appeal - it is simply too weird and outlandish for the average moviegoer - but there are enough flashes of brilliance to fascinate a niche audience in years to come. I found the experience to be frustratingly scattershot. While there are moments of genuine exhilaration, the film is undermined by its elliptical storyline and underwritten subplots. There's also the sense that the writer/director may not be taking the whole thing as seriously as the audience expects. What else can one surmise when she offers multiple references to Mel Brooks and closes the film with the perennial Halloween standard, "Monster Mash"?

© 2026 James Berardinelli

Synopsis

A lonely Frankenstein (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 (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!

Playing At

• Regal Hollywood - Nashville
  719 Thompson Lane, Nashville, TN