REVIEW: “The Bride!” (2026)

(Source: TMDB)

More than five months after Guillermo del Toro’s masterful take on Mary Shelley’s legendary Gothic novel, actress-turned-filmmaker Maggie Gyllenhaal (in her second directorial effort since The Lost Daughter) brings her own radical spin on the Frankenstein story with a period update of James Whale’s 1935 cinematic classic, The Bride of Frankenstein, which centered around the titular creation’s own companion. Essentially a monster movie in the guise of a crime-thriller, set in 1930s Chicago, The Bride! stars Christian Bale as the inaugural creature a.k.a. Frank (this is the actor’s first collaboration with Gyllenhaal since The Dark Knight), and Jessie Buckley as a newly-dead corpse named Ida, sparked back to life as the titular spouse. 

After the first trailer premiered, one person commented on social media that it looked like the kind of film that Joker: Folie a Deux should’ve been. And it should come as no surprise that some of the same crew from Todd Phillip’s much-dismissed sequel worked on this film as well, including cinematographer Lawrence Sher, composer Hildur Guoðnadóttir, and co-producer Emma Tillinger Koskoff. Filmed partially (and uniquely) in/for IMAX , with select segments in black-and-white, The Bride! features a stellar cast, including Peter Sarsgaard and Penelope Cruz (as persistent detectives on the trail of the infamous duo across country), Jake Gyllenhaal (as a Hollywood star that Frank idolizes when fantasizing about being in the movies), and Annette Bening (as a scientist that assists in reanimating Ida). 

While Bale does a unique but sort-of-lackluster Frank (a creature with a conscience), it’s Buckley’s Bride who’s the real live-wire here. (The actress reportedly filmed this movie before Hamnet.) Both are additionally brought to life with distinct makeup effects for the former’s scarred and stitched-together body, and the latter’s ink-blotted face. They even contribute to a few unexpected dance sequences, as well as films-within-the-film. However, like the infamous doctor’s creation, the problem isn’t so much that The Bride! feels like it’s stitched together. (I do wonder if that’s on purpose, though.) It’s more that it feels unsure of its own identity, considering certain characters—seemingly already in deep troubles before the main events—who feel (metaphorically) “buried alive” or afraid of themselves (“Was I just the same before the accident?”). 

The film opens with one character questioning what kind of story this is. Is it a ghost story, a tragedy, or a love story? Or is it all of those things? Likewise, some viewers will be wondering, is the story and overall tone schizophrenic, possessed, or just crazy without a cause, inadvertently starting a revolution-of-sorts? The narrative even incorporates Mary Shelley herself, albeit in a very possessive and haunting way. To be sure, The Bride! does have some intriguing, feminist-related commentary. Not to mention being something of a rallying cry for the less-fortunate and outcast. “The dead have something to say,” Ida tells us, “And it’s coming to you from the monsters.” 

But the end result is a maddening Bonnie & Clyde-meets-Joker saga that revels in psychological rage, foul dialogue, violent and emotionally unstable outbursts, and randy sexual content (including a montage of weirdly suggestive and graphic scenes). Regarding the latter, one apparently lonely and agonizing character’s desire for companionship is, at times, confused with sex. There are also suicidal references, seedy underground locales, crooked figures, and scenes of attempted rape or unwanted misconduct. Again, like its misguided characters, The Bride! rushes, meanders, and forgets itself. It makes me wonder if they knew what they were doing before they lit the sparks on this Frankenstein iteration, or just threw caution to the wind.