The Bride! Reviewed!

The Bride!, directed by actress turned Director Maggie Gyllenhaal, is a super weird, genre movie that I really enjoyed. The actors are great and you can clearly tell a lot love went into the movie. It’s stylish with a clear direction. I can't really say that's a good movie, but it was so much fun to watch. The plot is messy, but its never contrived or confusing. I would say where the movie fumbles is it can’t really decide what it wants to say about the Bride, the character. While it's sexy, there’s not too much edge or freakiness to it. 

I’ve loved Maggie Gyllenhaal since I saw her in Secret… I mean The Dark Knight. In the past few years, Gyllenhaal has become a writer-director releasing her first film, The Lost Daughter, a psychological thriller on Netflix. The Bride! is her second writing and directing credit and stars her friends and family. Jessie Buckley (The Lost Daughter, Hamnet) plays the titular character and Christian Bale (The Dark Knight) plays Frankenstein’s Monster (referred to as Frankenstein or Frankie). It also has a supporting cast featuring her brother, Jake Gyllenhaal, as an actor and her husband, Peter Sarsgaard, as a detective. Penelope Cruz plays Sarsgaard’s partner and Annette Benning plays a mad scientist who "re-invigorates” the Bride.

As I kinda explored in my Frankenstein (2025) review, Frankenstein has a bizarre and long film history. Part of this history is the creation of the Bride. In 1935, Universal Studios released a sequel to Frankenstein (1931) called The Bride of Frankenstein. There’s no sequel to the original book and the “bride” is never made in the book. It’s something that Victor stops from happening which leads the Monster to kill his family and friends. So the 1935 movie takes this plot point and expands it into a full film. The entire movie leads up to the creation of the Bride, who is then quickly “defeated” by Frankenstein and his wife.

In 1985, a cult classic film The Bride was released with Jennifer Beale as the Bride created for the Monster (Clancy brown (the voice of Mr. Krabs)). Dr. Frankenstein then seeks to marry the Bride himself and there’s a pygmalion plot line that happens until it inevitably gets violent. Frankenstein’s monster now named Victor rescues her and the two fall in love.

The 1935 films frames the story as the true tale of Frankenstein with actress Elsa Lanchester playing Mary Shelly narrating the film and the actual Bride. Gyllenhaal takes this concept and runs with it. Buckley plays dual roles as Mary Shelley and the Bride. The movie begins with the ghost of Mary Shelley decrying her death and telling us she has one more story to tell. We’re then introduced to Ida, a prostitute, who is currently at a dinner with two mobsters. Mary Shelley then possesses Ida which manifests as a tic like speech which leads to the mobsters taking her outside pushing her down the stairs, killing her. For the rest of the movie, Mary Shelley, occasionally takes over for the Bride after her resurrection and in between acts the bride talks to Mary in her sleep in black and white sequences similar in style to the 1935 film.

Frankenstein arrives in Chicago in the 1930s and implores a mad scientist to help him make a companion. Finally, we can start the main plot. I don’t think the plot of this movie is overly complicated, but it is bloated. Mary Shelley’s ghost possessing her is a weird fun idea and sometimes it works, but sometimes I have to wonder what are we doing Maggie? When Frankenstein kills someone for assaulting the Bride and the pair flee the scene and turn into Bonnie and Clyde, evading the police. Way too late, the movie introduces Peter Sarsgaard and Penelope Cruz as detectives. Sarsgaard plays the jaded veteran and Cruz is the idealist secretary who wants to be a detective. Easily my least favorite part of this movie is when we cut to these two doing any procedural investigation. However, they do have an interesting dynamic that I sometimes don’t hate.

While the main plot is the relationship between Frankenstein and the Bride, Frankenstein’s emotional core is (and I am not making this up) his love for musical cinema. Remember when I said Jake Gyllenhaal is in this movie? Yeah, he plays an actor, Ronnie Reed, who Frankenstein absolutely adores. Frankenstein goes to the movies six (6) times in this film. One time he has a panic attack and asks the bride to take him to the movies. Another time, he takes her and he mansplains fun facts about Ronnie Reed. This movie is ridiculous in the best way possible.

The film really plays with this obsession. Multiple times, Frankenstein envisions himself and the Bride in the movies he loves. The pair dance to a jazz cover of Putting on the Ritz, in a nod to Young Frankenstein with Gene Wilder. The surrealist elements of this movie are perfect, unlike a certain other movie I saw recently. It’s purposeful, self -indulgent, and over the top. Gyllenhaal has a clear vision and while it may be off putting to some, it doesn’t ever back down from what it wants to be, a glitzy romp about co-dependent lovers.

Thematically, this movie is a mess. It has so many ideas that it wants to explore, but is unwilling to commit to one at the expense of the other. The film is trying to explore who the Bride is and give her autonomy, but we spend so much time on Frankenstein some of her character development is hindered. There’s a subplot of copy cat feminist killers that attack their assaulters, but the movie does not give this the time it deserves. The Bride, when possessed by Mary Shelley, is a radical, but left alone is really into and loves Frankenstein. There’s also the ethical issue of bringing her back to life without her consent, which is addressed but in my opinion it’s extremely rushed.

If you think this movie is going to have a message like kill all men, you will be disappointed. Mary Shelley famously kept her dead husband’s calcified heart as a paperweight and Maggie Gyllenhaal has been in a loving marriage with Sarsgaard since 2008. This is a moving about self-identity while in a relationship. We get to see a freaky, sexy, and co-dependent relationship between the Bride and Frankenstein. The film really tries (and I think it does sometimes succeed) to put the Bride on equal footing with Frankenstein.

This film went in a totally unexpected direction for me. It’s bizarre and energetic. And it's fun. While it certainly has its problems, anyone telling you it's the worst movie they've ever seen is being ridiculous. This is a competent, good movie that at parts just kinda stumbles. I probably haven't done a great job at selling this movie, but I have one last thing to say. This movie ends with Monsters Mash playing as we cut to black. No Notes.