BRIDE, THE!
(director/writer: Maggie Gyllenhaal; cinematographer: Lawrence Sher; editor: Dylan Tichenor; music: Hildur Guðdnadóttir; cast: Jessie Buckley (The Bride of Frankenstein, Ida/Mary Shelley), Christian Bale (Frankenstein’s Monster Frank), Peter Sarsgaard (Det. Jake Wiles), Annette Bening (Dr. Euphonious), John Magaro (Clyde), Jeannie Berlin (Greta, Dr. Euphonious’ maid), Matthew Maher (James), Penélope Cruz (Myrna Mallow), Jake Gyllenhaal (Ronnie Reed), Zlatko Buric (Mr. Lupino); Runtime: 126; MPAA Rating: R; producers: Maggie Gyllenhaal, Emma Tillinger Koskoff, Talia Kleinhendler, Osnat Handelsman-Karen; Warner Bros. Pictures; 2026)
“Impressive re-imagining of the 1935 James Whale masterpiece The Bride of Frankenstein.”
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
The actress Maggie Gyllenhaal (“The Lost Daughter”) writes and directs this impressive re-imagining of the 1935 James Whale masterpiece The Bride of Frankenstein, a sequel to the 1931 Frankenstein movie also by Whale that was based on Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel. The masterful but flawed inventive film, a feminist outcry resulting from the current “Me Too” generation blends together an overcooked mix of Gothic Horror, a bizarre love story for lonely-hearts, nostalgic musical numbers and 1940s noir to create a uniquely visionary film that takes big swings but has many misses.
In 1936 Ida (Jessie Buckley), a tough working-class party girl in Chicago, hangs out at a shady nightclub run by the gangster Mr. Lupino (Zlatko Buric). When the mobster tires of her freely expressing herself, she’s killed by a couple of goons she befriends (John Magaro & Matthew Maher) who throw her down the stairs of the club because they’re afraid she got the mob boss mad and he would take it out on them for being her pals.
The ghost of Mary Shelley (Jessie Buckley) is upset that she never wrote a sequel due to her untimely death. To rectify this, in the opening scene, shot in black and white, she possesses Ida’s body that’s dumped at a pauper’s grave.
The self-pitying lonely monster Frank (Christian Bale), named after his late creator Dr. Frankenstein, returns to Chicago after a century of solitude in Austria and shows up in the institute lab of the experimental mad scientist Dr. Euphonious (Annette Bening) and asks her to make him a companion. The scientist recovers with Frank Ida’s possessed body and resurrects her. The companion speaks with a Brit accent when Shelley talks and in American English when Ida Talks. The bride looks like the frizzy-haired blonde super-star Jean Harlow, but with a black tongue, her mouth lined with black markings and a splash of black bile vomit on her cheek.
The freaky monsters make a love connection and go on rural roads to commit murders, as they do a Bonnie and Clyde thing going on the run when pursued by the slovenly private dick, Jake Wiles (Peter Sarsgaard, Maggie’s real-life husband), and his more capable wannabe lady detective (like who heard of a female detective!), his secretary, Myrna Mallow (Penélope Cruz)–think of her as Myrna Loy in The Thin Man.
Frank is a movie fan of Ronnie Reed (Jake Gyllenhaal, Maggie’s real-life brother), a popular matinee idol of the period, and the outlaws stop at every small town showing a Reed film. At the clubs, Frank mimics his idol’s musical numbers and does a super version of “Puttin’ on the Ritz.”
This unconventional feminist black comedy goes off in a vastly different direction than the Whale classic I loved so much. And, even if I still prefer Whale’s classic version, Maggie’s nutty, provocative and campy version excites me. Kudos to her for making such a bold film tuning into gender problems while offering a homage to the cinema’s glorious past and rebuking society for not accepting people who look different from them yet accept gangsters as folk-heroes.
The filmmaker wows us by taking big risks to make such a personal film, the kind of splashy rebellious film Hollywood refuses or can’t make anymore. I think many viewers don’t like the film because they cannot accept how much different it’s from Whale’s or all its missteps. But, in the very least, Jessie Buckley should be applauded for her great performance. It carried the film, as she was marvelous in her dual role as the unlucky Ida and the frustrated Mary Shelley.
REVIEWED ON 3/6/2026 GRADE: A-
dennisschwartzreviews.com