The Bride! doubles down on everything Poor Things did with the Frankenstein story

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In some alternate universe, there’s in all probability an easier, extra easy model of Maggie Gyllenhaal’s Frankenstein spin-off film The Bride! that’s at present getting referred to as a must-see crowd-pleaser romance. You may see the bones of that film in our universe’s model of the movie. Stripped all the way down to its core parts, The Bride! has all of the makings of a darkish, spooky, feel-good Bonnie and Clyde highway film, the place Frankenstein’s lonely, hideous monster will get the companion of his goals, they usually attempt to survive collectively in an unfriendly world that’s all too desperate to slap the “monster” label on outsiders, rebels, and anybody who resists the established order.

Gyllenhaal has way more difficult goals. Her model of The Bride! is far tougher to parse, and far tougher to swallow. It’s a provocation and a problem — a film designed to prickle and puzzle the mind greater than heat the guts. At occasions, the story’s layers get in the way in which of its extra gut-level pleasures, nevertheless it’s clear that’s intentional. It isn’t all the time apparent what Gyllenhaal needs viewers to get out of The Bride!, nevertheless it’s apparent she’s comfy making them work for it.

Jessie Buckley — who additionally co-starred in Gyllenhaal’s one earlier directorial venture, 2021’s Oscar-nominated drama The Misplaced Daughter — stars right here as Ida, a lady first seen partying with gangsters in 1936 Chicago. Ida has an agenda that doesn’t change into clear till the tip of the film, and it’s significantly unclear in The Bride!’s early going as a result of, earlier than the viewers learns something about her, she’s seemingly possessed by the spirit of Frankenstein creator Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (additionally performed by Buckley). Mary speaks on to the viewers from limbo and claims she needs to jot down a a lot scarier sequel to Frankenstein, a narrative she wasn’t allowed to inform. She additionally speaks and acts via Ida, driving her to provocative, horrifying habits that quickly will get her killed.

Ida quickly reappears within the laboratory of mad scientist Dr. Euphronius (Annette Bening), who exhumes her corpse and revives her as a mate for Frankenstein’s monster, principally known as “Frank” and performed by Christian Bale underneath a ton of disturbing stitched-together-corpse make-up. On this setting, Frank’s creator, Victor Frankenstein, was a pioneer within the artwork of dead-tissue revival; Dr. Euphronius studied, admired, and emulated his work. When Frank involves her complaining of his loneliness and requesting a companion, Dr. Euphronius solely places up token resistance earlier than agreeing to dig up a corpse and zap it again to life.

A few of what follows is a bit too acquainted from Yorgos Lanthimos’ current film Poor Issues, an adaptation of Alasdair Grey’s wild fantasy novel a few totally different mad scientist who revives a unique useless lady he seemingly hopes will probably be a tractable, enticing companion. Like Bella Baxter (Emma Stone) in Lanthimos’ film, the revived Ida is extra taken with pursuing her personal pleasures than in settling in as Frank’s made-to-order spouse. Whereas Ida doesn’t keep in mind her previous, she nonetheless has a few of her outdated drives towards nightclubs, events, and dancing. Her rapid pursuit of hedonism ends in catastrophe and places her on the run with Frank, who hopes she’ll come to like him.

<img width="1650" height="792" loading="lazy" decoding="async" alt="Frank (Christian Bale), aka Frankenstein's monster, a sewn-together man covered in rusty surgical staples, sits in a dusty car alongside Ida (Jessie Buckley), a pale reanimated corpse smeared with black fluid in The Bride!" data-img-url="https://static0.polygonimages.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/rev-1-brd-fp-053_high_res_jpeg.jpeg?q=49&fit=crop&w=825&dpr=2" src="https://static0.polygonimages.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/rev-1-brd-fp-053_high_res_jpeg.jpeg?q=49&fit=crop&w=825&dpr=2" class="img-brightness-opt-out"/> Picture: Warner Bros. Leisure Each variations of Poor Issues (although it’s much more pronounced within the guide) include a robust, clear message about girls’s company, significantly in eventualities the place males anticipate them to not have any. The Bride! takes up a few of that message, however instantly complicates it with bizarre occasions and a twisty sequence of reversals, as Ida’s persona ricochets round from scene to scene. Mary continues to own her on and off, typically to unclear ends. She appears to wish to drive the story to dramatic locations, however her interference is erratic, random, and puckish greater than pushed. As The Bride! morphs right into a darkish love-on-the-run story, it turns into more and more unclear the place an creator actually in limbo matches into the combination.

A few of these concepts come immediately from James Whale’s 1935 film Bride of Frankenstein, the sequel to his 1931 movie Frankenstein, which gave American cinema most of its concepts about how Frankenstein’s monster (performed by Boris Karloff) ought to look and sound. Bride of Frankenstein can also be framed by a scene the place Mary Shelley guarantees a sequel to her novel, and it additionally finally results in a newly made bride for the titular monster rejecting him in horror. That movie’s affect is clearly seen right here within the character designs as nicely, significantly in Buckley’s fright-wig hair and dramatic make-up.

However Mary Shelley opens Bride of Frankenstein by explaining to her husband Percy Bysshe Shelley and their pal Lord Byron that Frankenstein is an ethical fable about how mere mortals shouldn’t play God. The Bride! by no means finds that stage of readability.

Frank, specifically, by no means totally comes into focus as something however a lovelorn foil to Ida, regardless of all the main points the film packs onto him. He isn’t the highly effective, mental outcast of Shelley’s real-life novel, the guttural Boris Karloff monster of Whale’s movies, or the extra difficult creature that creators like Guillermo del Toro have made him. Bale performs him as a socially awkward dummy determined for contact and recognition. He able to mildly refined dialog when he’s pleading his case to Dr. Euphronius, however lowered to fumbling incoherence and jealous rages round Ida. It hardly ever looks like he has something a lot to supply a accomplice, besides dumb, dogged dedication and an animal viciousness towards anybody who threatens her.

Buckley sells Ida’s soulfulness and attraction extra handily, however the character’s reminiscence lapses, periodic possession, and emotional instability make her so erratic, it’s exhausting to search out the character at her coronary heart, or really feel a transparent rooting sense of curiosity in anyone impulse that directs her. On her revivification, Ida coughs up black goo that stains her lips, cheek, and physique, giving her a particular look. Later, as her aggressive iconoclasm makes waves throughout the nation, different girls emulate that look and he or she turns into a type of societally disruptive monster style icon in Woman Gaga mode. That’s a robust concept that Gyllenhaal expresses via memorable visuals and moments — nevertheless it’s a small, skinny thread in comparison with Ida and Frank’s on-again-off-again love story and cross-country crime spree.

<img width="1650" height="1158" loading="lazy" decoding="async" alt="Frankenstein (Christian Bale) and Ida (Jessie Buckley) scream as they lead a squad of dancers through a hunching, lurching dance in The Bride!" data-img-url="https://static0.polygonimages.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/rev-1-brd-fp-048_high_res_jpeg.jpeg?q=49&fit=crop&w=825&dpr=2" src="https://static0.polygonimages.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/rev-1-brd-fp-048_high_res_jpeg.jpeg?q=49&fit=crop&w=825&dpr=2" class="img-brightness-opt-out"/> Picture: Warner Bros. Leisure Different storylines additional complicate The Bride!, together with detective Jake Wiles (Peter Sarsgaard) and his far smarter secretary Myrna (Penélope Cruz) chasing Frank and Ida across the nation. These two appear dropped in from their very own procedural sequence: Myrna makes it clear she’s been fixing crimes that Jake takes credit score for as a result of he’s a person. Their push-and-pull relationship as she tries to get respect and recognition for her abilities is a unfastened parallel to Frank and Ida’s relationship, as Ida tries to search out or create her personal id.

After which there’s a complete sideline in Frank’s obsession with cinematic famous person Ronnie Reed (Gyllenhaal’s brother Jake, in a small however essential function that makes essentially the most of his charisma). Frank’s obsession with cinema repeatedly takes The Bride! into theaters, the place he and Ida both watch Ronnie sing, dance, and play out glossy love tales, or venture themselves onto the display screen to expertise these issues for themselves. That plotline results in a very wild musical sequence the place Gyllenhaal overtly references Mel Brooks’ Younger Frankenstein. On the identical time, she provides The Bride! a stage of surreal, manic glitz that elevates it right into a fantasy realm, the place all the opposite parts match collectively just a bit extra easily.

Nonetheless, it’s exhausting to shake the feeling that there are too many transferring items grinding and clashing in opposition to one another in The Bride! to let anyone side totally stand out. The obvious linking issue is the sense of a chaotic, annoyed, rage-driven commentary in regards to the predatory challenges girls face. Ida’s fierce resistance in opposition to being packaged as Frankie’s spouse, the gangster plotline that results in her unique demise, the 2 totally different incidents of sexual violence she faces all through the movie, and her recognition as an aspirational determine all converse to how typically girls are pushed into roles as prey, patsies, or possessions — after which demonized once they resist these roles. Myrna’s makes an attempt to get her abilities reasonably than her intercourse acknowledged converse to that theme too.

<img width="1650" height="1158" loading="lazy" decoding="async" alt="Myrna (Penélope Cruz), a dark-haired woman in a beret with a betrayed expression on her face, sits in a car at night with Jake Wiles (Peter Sarsgaard) in The Bride!" data-img-url="https://static0.polygonimages.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/rev-1-brd-fp-202r_high_res_jpeg.jpeg?q=49&fit=crop&w=825&dpr=2" src="https://static0.polygonimages.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/rev-1-brd-fp-202r_high_res_jpeg.jpeg?q=49&fit=crop&w=825&dpr=2" class="img-brightness-opt-out"/> Picture: Warner Bros. Leisure However Ida and Frank’s sometimes-weird, sometimes-sweet, sometimes-violent romance by no means totally jibes with these concepts, and barely has sufficient consistency or vitality of its personal to face as a thread both linking them, or in opposition to them. Neither does Mary Shelley’s presence all through the movie. This film is its personal type of Frankenstein’s monster, stitched collectively from a thousand totally different elements and lurching into disturbing life. The Bride! looks like it was meant to be mentioned, analyzed, and unpacked at size, with totally different followers seizing on totally different parts as the important thing to the entire shambling creature. However like so most of the Frankensteinian creatures that preceded it onto the display screen, it’s a little bit of an unwieldy monster.