The Bride! 2026 Movie Review Trailer Poster

 It's a skewed feminist take on the "Frankenstein" myth that could have had more narrative force.

It's alive! I mean the "Frankenstein" legend. I thought its reanimated corpse nearly escaped life support in Guillermo del Toro's "Frankenstein," a film that, for me, was pure baroque production devoid of any real energy. It was so laden with retro pomposity that it made me never want to see another "Frankenstein" movie.

But here we are, half a year later, with Maggie Gyllenhaal's "The Bride." Is it a horror film? Not quite. An awards contender? Not a chance. A potential hit? I doubt it. It's a sloppy, punkish feminist tragicomedy about mad love, a renegade version of the "Frankenstein" myth. And while the film doesn't quite work—it drags and spirals out of control—it has plenty of substance, but it lacks narrative drive; it has a spark of audacity. 

It's alive in a way that Del Toro's "Frankenstein" wasn't. In her second feature film, Gyllenhaal, the actress-turned-screenwriter-director ("The Lost Daughter"), hasn't come to embalm the "Frankenstein" legend with majestic taste, but rather to reimagine its perversity. "The Bride" is a bit of a pastiche (reminiscent of films ranging from "Joker: Folie à Deux" to "Thelma & Louise"), but it's also a depraved and poignant fairy tale.

Director: Maggie Gyllenhaal
Writer: Maggie Gyllenhaal
Stars: Jessie Buckley, Christian Bale, Jake Gyllenhaal

And it is, without a doubt, a tasteless love story. Mary Shelley published her revolutionary novel, "Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus," in 1818, at just 20 years old, but the film, for no apparent reason, is set in 1936, when Frankenstein's monster appears in the neon-lit, mafia-ridden metropolis of Chicago. He's been wandering the planet for far too many years, and it shows. He has a crown of grimy staples encircling his forehead, a diagonal scar marking a fleshy lump on his nose, and a body that looks like it was reconstructed from rotting cowhides by a drunken mechanic. In other words, he's someone born to be played by Christian Bale.

Bale introduces him with a charmingly goofy voice, yet one that's just lucid enough to hold a conversation, a slow, post-lobotomy delivery that sounds like Bale's imitation of how Willem Dafoe would have played the role. The character, known as Frank, arrives at the studio of Dr. Euphronious (Annette Bening), who is friendly, with a touch of humor that doesn't quite fit the image of a mad scientist. But that's what she is. She's willing to give Frank what he needs: a friend and companion, someone to love. And this is where the film veers away from retro mythology to become its own sloppy, mod movie.

Some consider James Whale's "Bride of Frankenstein" a better film than "Frankenstein" (it was certainly more modern, a rarity in 1935), but the main character, played by Elsa Lanchester, with her beehive hair and a furrowed brow of adoration and fear, only truly comes to life in the final 10 minutes. "Bride of Frankenstein" dedicates its two hours and six minutes of runtime to the relationship between Frank and Ida (Jessie Buckley), who begins as a 1930s party girl.

We first meet her out drinking, surrounded by a group of sleazy men, one of whom (Matthew Maher) forces her to eat an oyster, which she then regurgitates. That same spirit will live on in her after her death, which occurs shortly after she is thrown down a flight of stairs. She is the corpse that Frank and Dr. Euphronious retrieve from the earth, bringing her back to life with a variation of the typical electromagnetic trinket.

But this isn't your mom's monster bride. Ida, who can't remember her own name, is a clueless rebel with a mind that's constantly shifting channels. A ragdoll version of the living dead, she has Jean Harlow's thick blonde hair, wears a flapper-style orange silk dress, and has a permanent stain of black chemical blood on one side of her mouth that looks like spilled ink; it matches her black lips and tongue. She's a walking mannequin of darkness, played by Buckley in a magnetic daze of innocence and rage.

This bride is a wise angel and a complete lunatic: she's alive, but she doesn't quite know who she is. But then she starts declaiming in a haughty British accent, as if she's channeling someone; it's her creator, Mary Shelley, whom Buckley also plays in the film's black-and-white frame, speaking to the audience like a devilish aristocrat. Shelley introduces the story by saying that it was too forbidden to publish it back then. But now the story can be told. Joking about the danger, he says, "Here comes the damn bride!" I was shocked to see that line on a movie poster. But it's a sign of how yesterday's avant-garde can become today's sophisticated marketing. 

Except the film doesn't move. I didn't want "The Bride!" to be an action-horror film, but many scenes have a murky, static rhythm that feels improvised (even though they aren't). It's fun to see Buckley, after the sincerity of "Hamnet," delivering a performance of schizophrenic fury. The phrase Ida uses as a mantra comes from Melville's "Bartleby, the Scrivener": "I would prefer not to." She would prefer not to do what she's told to do to fit into a man's world. So she becomes a feminist avenger, inspiring a wave of revolution. Women all over the world rise up, representing their sisterhood with black ink tattoos on their mouths.

But the revolution, as it's presented, is never fully colored; it's abstract. And that's why it's didactic. Frank, a lifelong moviegoer, is obsessed with a 1930s music and dance star: a dashing matinee idol named Robbie Reed (played by the director's brother, Jake Gyllenhaal), who embodies the unattainable ideal of perfection. Frank and Ida end up at a disco, where Gyllenhaal performs a dazzling, old-fashioned dance number, including "Puttin' on the Ritz" (a clever joke, given the reference to "Young Frankenstein"). The scene has a heady rhythm. But then, "The Bride!", despite the appeal of its cast, reverts to its whimsical and melancholic aimlessness. It's alive, but it could have used a bit more energy.

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