Maggie Gyllenhaal’s sophomore written and directorial effort is a good-looking, but muddled and frustrating, adaptation of Frankenstein’s bride.
By: Craig Allan
One Star. Do not see.
With the recent success of Netflix’s Frankenstein (2025), it is not a bad time to capitalize on the popularity of the character with the monsters equally cobbled together wife. The Bride! directed by Maggie Gyllenhaal and starring this year’s Best Actress Oscar frontrunner, Jessie Buckley as the titular bride, looked to be a promising movie. Unfortunately, The Bride! is a complete misfire. While the sets and makeup are top-notch, the film is marred by confusing writing, a boring story, and a completely unhinged Buckley, who blends a multitude of ideas in a mind-numbing mess.
Gyllenhaal’s second written and directed film, after getting an Adapted Screenplay nomination in 2021 for the movie The Lost Daughter, is an adaptation of The Bride of Frankenstein to the depression era streets of Chicago. A desperate Frank (Christian Bale) seeks out the help of Dr. Cornelia Euphronius (Annette Bening) to make him a bride. Finding the recently deceased Ida (Buckley), Dr. Euphronius resurrects a suitable mate for Frank. As a mentally clouded Ida tries to put the pieces of her identity together, she and Frank wreak havoc across the northeastern states, terrifying people and influencing an army of women to upend the patriarchal system.
The highlight of the movie is the set design. The 1930’s aesthetic is well put together, with Dr. Euphronius’s lab and some of the party scenes being well designed and set. The makeup design is also very well done, in many cases outdoing the Oscar-nominated makeup work for Frankenstein. The design of having some of the black liquid used to revive the bride stained on her cheek is a good addition, and the design on Frank has better dimensions and features than the recent Jacob Elordi-designed monster from the Netflix film. These almost make for a passable film, but everything else brings it down.
This movie was released on March 6 with the embargo lifted around the Wednesday before the release. Given that the period for Oscar voting ends March 5, it wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility that the reason for this was not to affect Buckley’s Oscar hopes. While Buckley has frequently made amazing performances, like in Women Talking (2022) and Hamnet (2025), The Bride! is one of her worst performances. Throughout the film, Buckley’s Bride sports many different accents from American English to Cockney and other accents, each more unintelligible than the last. She also plays Mary Shelley, who is talking to The Bride from beyond the grave. The performance is all-over-the-place, and with Buckley being so close to winning an Oscar for Hamnet, this feels like Norbit (2007), where Eddie Murphy seemed destined to win a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for Dreamgirls (2006) but lost, with many blaming the critically derided Norbit for the failure. It’s a stressful performance that will make the viewer wonder if their brain has been brought back to life as a scrambled mess.
While Buckley’s performance is a mess, it can’t be denied that these were the lines she was contracted to say. The other characters are not much better in their dialogue, which feels too modern for 1934. Gyllenhaal was clearly influenced by the 1930’s era setting, and the desolate American rural backdrops to make Frank and The Bride a Bonnie and Clyde type couple like the 1967 film. There is potential for a story that could work in that setting, but Gyllenhaal is unable to find it. The Bride! confusingly meanders from scene to scene, fitting in Ida performing fellatio on Frank and the two committing murders, which they confusingly enjoy at first but feel remorse for later. The uneven nature of the movie makes it a slog to watch, with audiences hoping a bolt of lightning will strike the theatre, if only to bring life to the movie.
Gyllenhaal took a big swing here with her second movie. The thing about big swings is that they can miss. That is the case with The Bride!, a film that is as scattered as Ida’s mind and as meandering as Frank’s walk. The Bride! is alive, but it needs to be put down.
