The bride of Frankenstein finally gets her time in the sun in Maggie Gyllenhaal’s The Bride! — or the dark streets of Chicago, rather. An icon of classic monster movies, the companion of a literary legend, and inspiration for countless Halloween costumes, the character has never gotten quite the same spotlight as her counterpart. In fact, she doesn’t even talk in the original 1935 film. Gyllenhaal takes this injustice and runs with it, letting Jessie Buckley play with reckless abandon in this twisted, untethered tale.
Gyllenhaal combines Old Hollywood ritz, penny dreadfuls, and a pinch of steampunk pizazz to create a highly stylized reimagining of The Bride of Frankenstein, all while channeling the spirit of Mary Shelley. These disparate elements don’t always blend together, making for a Frankenstein’s monster of a film in its own right, composed of too many different inspirations and aesthetics. Still, Gyllenhaal brings fresh insights to the classic story and infuses it with an unapologetic stream of feminism.
Where the feminist commentary thrives is in the Bride’s newfound agency. At the very beginning of the film, the tormented spirit of the late Mary Shelley enters the character of Ida (the Bride before she was reanimated). Ida is revived with her detest for the mobster pigs that surround her. She lashes out but, along with other women like her, pays the ultimate price. After she is reanimated, the spirit of Shelley remains within Ida/the Bride, driving her to seek revenge.
You have to admire Gyllenhaal’s big swings — they feel inspired and intentional. Opening the movie with an address from Mary Shelley (also played by Buckley) puts The Bride! in direct conversation with the 1818 novel “Frankenstein.” The film raises questions: What if Shelley possessed a young woman in the 1930s? What story would she tell? How would she interact with modern ideas of womanhood and continue to push its boundaries?
Remarkably, Gyllenhaal finds opportunities to challenge gender dynamics in nearly every corner of the film. From the early scene of Frank (Christian Bale) searching for Dr. Euphronious (Annette Bening), she smirks and tells him that she is, in fact, the scientist he’s looking for, not a man. In a subplot following two detectives, the point is hammered home that the lead detective’s female assistant is far more competent. These gender switches feel a bit too on-the-nose, but they do make for a more invigorating supporting cast than a typical 1930s sea of men.
There is some clear favoritism sprinkled in the cast of The Bride!, but ultimately it’s led by an electrifying performance from Buckley. In supporting roles, Gyllenhaal casts her husband (Peter Sarsgaard) as the lead detective, brother Jake Gyllenhaal as the movie star Ronnie Reed, former costars like Bale, and past collaborators like Buckley, with whom she worked on her directorial debut, The Lost Daughter (2021).
Fresh off the grass-stained heels of Hamnet, Buckley somehow becomes even more feral in her performance as the Bride. Her staccato movements and mercurial mannerisms keep you on edge, unsure of what she’ll do next. Although Buckley’s energy and craft are unmatched, her performance unfortunately doesn’t fully lift The Bride! from the dregs of its scrambled tonal discrepancies.
Beneath the film’s loud gauze of dance numbers and bloody affair, there is another theme tucked quietly away, waiting to be explored: loneliness. The Bride is created because Frank is lonely. The story of Frankenstein itself is partly inspired by Shelley’s own loneliness. Headstrong women like Ida and the detective’s assistant, Myrna (Penélope Cruz), are isolated and made to feel their aspirations are too high.
One display of loneliness I found fascinating is Frank’s earnest gushing when he meets his idol, the movie star Ronnie Ray. Frank frequents the movies and finds that, on the big screen, humanity is most accessible to him.
This sense of loneliness resonates throughout the film. It’s the perfect representation of how movies and stories can make us feel less alone — a sentiment I found resonantwhen reading the novel. Despite my complaints, the emotion comes through in Maggie Gyllenhaal’s The Bride! thanks to its fearless feminist reimaging of an often overlooked canonical character.
Review Courtesy of Kasey Dunifer
Feature Image Credit to Warner Bros. Pictures via TheMovieBox