What a quantum leap Maggie Gyllenhaal has made from a low-budget indie drama, The Lost Daughter, to an expensive genre movie in The Bride! The latter only marks her second directorial feature, but Warner Bros. is confident enough to grant her an already-costly $80 million budget before the movie ballooned to reportedly exceeding $100 million due to extensive reshoots. This explains why the movie got postponed from its original September 2025 release date.
You see, I love the 1935’s Bride of Frankenstein, one of the rare great sequels that surpassed the original, even though the introduction of Elsa Lanchester’s titular character doesn’t have much of a screen time. And yet, her appearance – from the way she looks, moves and speaks – leaves a lasting impression. Which begs an all-important question of whether Gyllenhaal manages to do justice to her interpretation of that familiar story of Frankenstein wanting a companion. Interestingly, she isn’t looking to go down the same path as James Whale did ninety-one years ago.
The basis remains intact, but Gyllenhaal, who also wrote the screenplay, flips the script by re-imagining The Bride character as a rebel of sorts who’s far from the one seen in Lanchester’s portrayal. She’s wild, with a capital “W”, and that exclamation point in the title justifies the bold and aggressive nature of the titular role, played by Jessie Buckley. Even before she becomes a reanimated corpse brought back to life later in the movie, Gyllenhaal establishes her volatile character right from the get-go. It’s 1930s Chicago, where we are introduced to an unhinged Ida (Buckley) before her life is wasted. She’s dead but not for long, especially after a humanoid monster named Frank a.k.a Frankenstein (Christian Bale) digs her up from the ground one night.
Having lived in solitude for so long after his late creator created him over a century ago, he’s looking to overcome his loneliness once and for all. A “bride” would be an answer, leading to Frank seeking help from a scientist named Dr. Euphronious (Annette Bening). The latter is initially reluctant to fulfill Frank’s wish of creating a companion out of the female dead body, which somehow leads to Ida’s corpse. The experiment works, but The Bride, who awakens from the table, is like an untamed being seeking liberty and identity.
At first, watching Buckley’s intense, fired-up performance showcases the actress’s versatility in embodying such a character, a 180-degree turn from what I saw her emotionally vulnerable performance in Hamnet, that’s been gaining traction in the awards circuit. Her character also sports a distinct appearance, including her prominent orange satin dress, a deliberate choice of vibrant color that serves as a radical contrast with the movie’s largely gothic-style atmosphere. The Bride’s messy and textured blonde hairstyle mirrors her rebellious personality, complete with smudged ink-like blotches that line from one side of her lips to her cheek as if it’s a permanent avant-garde tattoo.
But here lies the problem: Her character’s sense of reckless abandon ultimately annoys me as I sit through the movie watching her unrestrained performance. Somehow, acting loud most of the time doesn’t equal subtlety. It’s like a showy performance without much of an emotional depth or weight, despite her character is technically undead. However, The Bride! is also a love story, which is meant to portray the ill-fated romance between her and the lonely Frank. There are times their chemistry soars, but otherwise, these two reanimated lovers do not resonate as much as I would expect from them. They even depicted like the outlaws, Bonnie and Clyde, played by Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway in the 1967 seminal classic. But instead of serial bank robbers, The Bride and Frank are running away from the law after killing two men at one point.
Their love story may have been a mixed bag, but Gyllenhaal proves to be quite adept at depicting visceral violence and brutality in some scenes. As for Bale, his sympathetic turn as Frank has its moments, but far from the best performance, while Bening does what she can in pulling off a decent supporting role as the obsessive but conflicted Dr. Euphronious. And so does Jake Gyllenhaal, playing famous movie star Ronnie Reed, whom Frank idolizes. Beyond the story of The Bride and Frank’s fickle relationship,
Gyllenhaal also incorporates an added subplot revolving around Detective Jake Wiles (Peter Sarsgaard) and his eager partner, Myrna (Penelope Cruz), working on a case to investigate the murder. In what could have been a gritty crime-thriller angle, the subplot is rather clunky in its execution, frequently disrupting the momentum of this already uneven movie.
Technically speaking, The Bride! looks visually incredible, thanks to Lawrence Sher’s evocative cinematography, along with Karen Murphy’s intricate production design and Sandy Powell’s eclectic costume design. Gyllenhaal’s ambition may have been undeniable, but it’s hard to deny most of the movie’s shortcomings.
