Opening in theaters on March 6 is ‘The Bride!,’ written and directed by Maggie Gyllenhaal and starring Jessie Buckley, Christian Bale, Peter Sarsgaard, Penélope Cruz, John Magaro, Jake Gyllenhaal, Jeannie Berlin, and Annette Bening.
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Initial Thoughts
‘The Bride!’ is a lot. Maggie Gyllenhaal’s second directorial effort (which she also scripted) is wildly ambitious and far bigger than her first film, ‘The Lost Daughter,’ combining the genres of horror, film noir, comedy, and romance into essentially a anarchic punk reinvention of ‘The Bride of Frankenstein.’ But the Bride here, embodied by a magnetic Jessie Buckley, is no mute walk-on at the end: death and reanimation (or “reinvigoration,” as it’s called in the movie) changes her into a force of primal female power that no one – certainly not her monstrous mate – can control.
Buckley’s own primal energy and that of her co-star Christian Bae go a long way in ‘The Bride!’ but the film is not without considerable flaws. It’s almost too much at points, and its disparate tones, themes, and narrative strands take a long time to gel together, and then only fitfully. The movie takes a big, big swing – but doesn’t always connect.
Story and Direction
The film opens with a ghostly version of ‘Frankenstein’ author Mary Shelley (Buckley) telling us from beyond the grave there’s more to the story of the Bride than we know (Shelley herself never brought the creature’s mate to life, unlike James Whale’s classic 1935 film). Next we meet Ida (also Buckley), a young woman in 1930s Chicago who, possessed inexplicably by Shelley’s spirit, is murdered by the gangsters she’s fallen in with.
At the same time, Frank (Christian Bale), Victor Frankenstein’s creation who’s been alive for more than a century and taken the name of his ‘father,’ approaches the eccentric, radical scientist Dr. Euphronious (Annette Bening) about making him a mate. They dig up Ida’s body and as a result of her ‘reinvigoration,’ she becomes the Bride, a fierce, impulsive, wildly sensual, and unfettered being with no memory of her past.
Before they even fully understand what’s happening, Frank and the Bride go on a killing spree that begins with two men who grope the Bride at a club and continues bloodily from there, as they are pursued across the country by two detectives (Peter Sarsgaard and Penélope Cruz). But the Bride also becomes a cult figure to women everywhere, who adopt her look and her willingness to tell men ‘no’ – or in her words, ‘I would prefer not to.’ Frank, who adores her, is the only man she trusts, even though he hides some truths about their past as well.
‘The Bride!’ begins at 100mph and doesn’t let up from there, although there are points where it feels long and one’s interest begins to fade. Part of it is the overwhelming nature of the movie: ‘The Bride!’ is a full-on assault on the senses, from Ida’s murder to the creation scene to her first night out as the Bride in a club, each of these scenes nearly exploding with stroboscopic energy. The tone shifts wildly as well, from dark comedy to full-on horror to road movie, and those shifts can be so jarring and abrupt that the result for the viewer is numbness. Matching those are the narrative strands that come and go, from the undercooked gangster subplot to the fuzzily sketched detectives, who don’t really earn the arcs they get.
On a tactile level, production designer Karen Murphy and costume designer Sandy Powell create immersive, detailed sets and outfits for the film, while cinematographer Lawrence Sher comes up with a series of searing images. The film is also surprisingly gory, with heads smashed in, tongues ripped out, and bullets ripping through flesh. Frank, a movie fanatic obsessed with film star Ronnie Reed (Jake Gyllenhaal), has visions in which he and the Bride perform dance numbers out of Reed’s movies (there are lots of other movie homages as well, a nice touch on Maggie Gyllenhaal’s part). All this only adds to the jumbled, chaotic vibe of the movie – the viewer is never really sure whether to take all this seriously or not, which ultimately undermines the film despite its sheer originality.
Cast and Performances
Following hot on the heels of her devastating work in ‘Hamnet,’ Jessie Buckley pivots here into an over-the-top performance that teeters on the edge of overbearing but keeps the viewer enthralled due to the actor’s sheer presence and power. She’s matched in that department by Christian Bale, whose heavy prosthetics recall the classic Boris Karloff look but who is just as raw as Buckley, creating a nuanced monster who’s as empathetic in his own way as Jacob Elordi’s take in 2025’s ‘Frankenstein.’ The two channel a ‘Bonnie and Clyde’ chemistry that often goes so far out there that they have a little trouble reeling it back in and making these characters seem real again.
Peter Sarsgaard (Maggie Gyllenhaal’s husband) and Penélope Cruz share a nice chemistry as well, and Cruz is especially vivacious. But one gets the feeling that they might be better off in their own movie where they have more space to explore their characters. The supporting MVP is Annette Bening, who brings compassion to an otherwise campier role and who, like the others, has her motivations scrambled by the sudden turns in tone and narrative.
Final Thoughts
There’s no question that Maggie Gyllenhaal gets an ‘A’ for effort here. Rebooting the Bride of Frankenstein as a woman freed of her past, experiencing true liberation for the first time, and mowing down those who try to corral that is the most radical take we’ve seen on the Frankenstein mythos in a long time, and that theme, the setting, and the stream-of-consciousness structure of the whole thing make it one of the most original films you’re likely to see in 2026.
But as with a few other films we’ve already seen this year, ‘The Bride!’ often feels like Gyllenhaal and her cast and crew are throwing everything at the wall and holding nothing back, hoping that in the end it looks more like art and less like … a mess on the wall. Like its monstrous leads, ‘The Bride!’ is made up of many parts stitched together and sparked into life by pure electricity – yet it’s that uncontrolled energy that also makes ‘The Bride!’ an unwieldly, exhausting experience.
‘The Bride!’ receives a score of 65 out of 100.
What is the plot of ‘The Bride!’
A lonely Frankenstein’s monster (Christian Bale) travels to 1930s Chicago to ask pioneering scientist Dr. Euphronious (Annette Bening) to create a companion for him. The two revive a murdered young woman and The Bride (Jessie Buckley) is born. What ensues is beyond what either of them imagined: murder, possession, a radical cultural movement, and outlaw lovers in a wild and combustible romance.
Who is in the cast of ‘The Bride!’
- Jessie Buckley as Ida/The Bride/Mary Shelley
- Christian Bale as Frank
- Peter Sarsgaard as Det. Jake Wiles
- Penélope Cruz as Myrna Mallow
- Annette Bening as Dr. Euphronious
- Jake Gyllenhaal as Ronnie Reed
- John Magaro as Clyde
- Jeannie Berlin as Greta
- Zlatko Burić as Lupino
List of Movies Similar to ‘The Bride!’
- ‘Frankenstein‘ (1931)
- ‘The Bride of Frankenstein‘ (1935)
- ‘Son of Frankenstein‘ (1939)
- ‘Bud Abbott and Lou Costello Meet Frankenstein‘ (1948)
- ‘Young Frankenstein‘ (1974)
- ‘The Bride‘ (1985)
- ‘Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein‘ (1994)
- ‘Frankenweenie‘ (2012)
- ‘I, Frankenstein‘ (2014)
- ‘Victor Frankenstein‘ (2015)
- ‘The Lost Daughter‘ (2021)
- ‘Lisa Frankenstein‘ (2024)
- ‘Frankenstein’ (2025)
- ‘The Bride!‘ (2026)
