Hot Mess: Review of The Bride
★★1/2
Illustration by Michael DiMilo
By Geoff Carter
We’re all familiar—all too familiar—with the tale of Frankenstein. We’ve seen enough iterations of it over the years, a trend that shows no signs of slowing. Recently, from Guillermo del Toro’s lavish and faithful 2025 production of the original story to Tim Burton’s Frankenweenie to Zelda Williams’ Lisa Frankenstein to the very latest, Maggie Gyllenhaal’s The Bride, Mary Woolstencroft Shelly’s classic story of one zealously ambitious man reanimating a corpse has fascinated literati, and filmgoers, for years.
Encompassing themes of scientific overreach, immortality, moral responsibility, unchecked personal ambition, and the unbridled power of nature, Frankenstein has captured the imagination of millions. Most recently, feminist criticism has cited it as a work in which one man has attempted to defy nature and to usurp the singular power of the female—to give birth—an upheaval of the natural order that results in horrific consequences.
This feminist slant not only informs Gyllenhaal’s production but is the engine which propels it headlong into the latest revisionist iteration of this timeless tale. The film starts with a black-and-white headshot of author Mary Shelley (Jessie Buckley) who laments dying before being able to tell her story after Frankenstein, a wrong she intends to fix. In order to do so, she uses a mysterious power from beyond the grave to possesses Ida (Jessie Buckley), a woman living in Depression-era Chicago. While possessed by Shelley, Ida lashes out at the men around her and blurts out information about crime boss Lupino (Zlatko Buric). As a result, Lupino sends henchmen Clyde (John Magaro) and James (Matthew Maher) to take care of her. As she is being escorted out, Ida falls down the stairs and is killed.
Meanwhile, the Frankenstein monster (Christian Bale) comes to Chicago to seek out Dr. Cornelius Euphonious (Annette Benning), an expert at reanimation hoping she can help find a companion for him. She refuses at first, and then finally, pitying the creature’s loneliness, she finally accedes. Together, they recover Ida’s corpse and reanimate her, but Ida loses her memory during the procedure. Frank lies to her, telling her she is his bride. They go to a movie featuring actor Ronnie Reed (Jake Gyllenhaal) Frank’s favorite song and dance man. Afterwards, they go dancing. When two men attempt to assault Ida, Frank kills them.
Frank tells Ida to leave the murder scene, so she might stay out of trouble, but she decides to stay with him, and they flee to New York City. Detectives Wiles (Peter Sarsgaard) and Myrna Malloy (Penelope Cruz) investigate and begin following the two fugitives. After creating a ruckus at a zombie film, the couple are chased by a mob into a ritzy party where Frank bumps into Reed. Frank proclaims his adoration and love for the actor, who brushes him off. Frank then starts a Ronnie Reed dance routine that Ida—possessed again by Shelley—joins. The whole room becomes possessed by Shelley and the police are called. During a standoff, Ida kills a policeman and the two again must flee.
The press picks up the story of their crime spree, and the two “monsters” become well-publicized outlaw heroes. Lupine sees these stories, recognizes Ida, and dispatches his men to kill her. Wiles finally catches up with the pair at a drive-in theater where things go very sour.
The Bride is, to say the least, an ambitious project. Seeking to combine elements of feminist ideology, gothic horror, a Bonnie and Clyde vibe, a love story, an urban gangster flick, popular culture—including a weird sort of tribute to Hollywood musicals, and elements of film noir light, it seems as if the entire film is trying a little too hard.
There are many very good things about The Bride, but coherence is not one of them. The film seems to bump along from one trope to another without doing much to connect them. From the very first, the Mary Shelly possession trope seems clunky and a little forced, but it works. The initial scene in the restaurant where Ida and her friends are being harassed by a group of men is harrowing, but Ida’s possession again seems jarringly incongruous.
Frank’s fascination with Ronnie Reed is endearing, but the connection between the couple and pop culture seems forced—and a bit superfluous. The big dance sequence at the New York party is beautifully choreographed and shot, but the viewer is forced to ask what’s the point, how does this fit into this story?
Parts of The Bride are absolutely brilliant, but it’s unfortunate that there is just too much going on for the viewer to latch onto. Most of it is familiar territory. We all know noir, we know gangster tropes, and we really know the Frankenstein story, but when all this is thrown on the screen in a sort of willy-nilly pastiche, we have to wonder why. There is always something happening in Maggie Gyllenhaal’s film, as Shakespeare said, that seems to be “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” Well, maybe nothing is a bit harsh. There is something here, but what it signifies is lost in the shuffle.
The acting in this film is nothing short of absolutely brilliant. Christian Bale’s rendition of the creature as a sensitive, intelligent, and thoughtful being is breathtakingly perfect. His soft-spoken and deliberate demeanor coupled with his world-weary desire for simple companionship is hearbreakingly rendered, especially when balanced against his innocent enthusiasm for Ronnie Reed, his screen idol.
Even the scene where he encounters his idol Ronnie Reed and gushes over him like a schoolgirl is credibly done. In some other actors’ hands, this scene may have turned into a maudlin display, but Bale manages to keep the creature’s dignity intact while projecting a childlike innocence.
Jessie Buckley’s portrayal of Ida first as victim, then as embodiment of Shelly’s spirit, and then as outlaw folk hero maintains a continuity between these figments of herself. Despite the character’s inherent wildness and unpredictability, she manages to somehow keep Ida grounded. As an actress, Buckley hits notes that define her characters in a heartbeat. Her passive resistance in the first scene is perfectly rendered. She is obviously repulsed and only reluctantly compliant with the putrid pigs around her. Buckley manages to portray a gallery of emotional snapshots with only a few facial expressions. On the flip side, Annette Benning’s portrayal of Dr. Euphonious is awkward and off-key. Whether this is the performance or the book is difficult to say, but the character looks childish and petty in contrast to the monster.
This film has great and beautiful and funny moments. Unfortunately, there are just too many of them. Gyllenhaal has stitched together a creature here that—like the worst of AI—has too many hands, too many feet (left mostly) and too many hearts. What could have been a great film has ended up as a sloppy—but attractive—mess.