'The Bride!' Review: Maggie Gyllenhaal’s Wild Punk Monster Experiment
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By Jack Ransom - March 9, 2026
This swiftly shot into the category of one of my most anticipated films of this year after the first trailer dropped. The Bride! is set in 1930s Chicago, and sees Frankenstein (Christian Bale) ask Dr. Euphronius (Annette Benning) to help create a companion. They give life to a murdered woman as the Bride (Jessie Buckley), sparking romance, police interest, and radical social change.
“Here comes the motherfucking’ Bride!”
Having not yet seen The Lost Daughter, the directorial debut from Maggie Gyllenhaal, it’s easy to imagine it being wildly different from what she has concocted here. I certainly understand the divisive response this has been receiving (had a couple of people walk out of my screening), because make-no-mistake, this is a mess, but it also happens to be a fascinating, bold, unique and big swing of mess that barely can balance all of the ideas it is juggling.
The pre-title card opening absolutely rules. Genuinely will go down as the most striking, in your face, prepare-for-a-gonzo-time prelude this year and it brought a massive grin to my face. Within minutes Ida (Buckley) is writhing, swearing, voice changing, dancing and causing a scene, whilst interspersed with black and white void-like footage of Mary Shelley (also Buckley) rambling about life and death, before bellowing “HEEEEEEEELP!”
From here we meet Frank as he arrives at Euphronius’ home. Painfully lonely, frightened and desperate for companionship he convinces her to let her intrigue and scientific exploration win over her morality and criminality as they head to the morgue and choose a suitable cadaver bride. Once jolted back to existence the duo hit the rowdy 1930’s street scene: from Frank’s beloved cinemas to the rowdy underground clubs that Ida has fractured memories of. A brutal encounter leads to a couple of corpses and the pair hit the road…
Here is where the strain of balancing too many intertwined threads becomes stretched thin. At the centre you have the lead duo in a riotous Bonnie & Clyde-esque, twisted relationship of recklessness and violence, the Bride’s ongoing identity crisis, Frank’s obsession with a fictional musical star (played by Jake Gyllenhaal), a Detective duo (Penelope Cruz & Peter Sarsgaard) on the case, a ruthless mob boss hunting the undead lovers *and* a potential female Bride-inspired social uprising. The screenplay jumps between these plots and unfortunately means that the more interesting and central elements don’t feel as fleshed out as they could and should be.
Visually the film looks great and there are shots that will linger in my mind for a while. From the classic Universal era-sequel black and white Shelley scenes, to the grimy, dingy alcohol and sex drenched city back alleys and the vast highways and landscapes that the pair travel along. I love when the lines of reality and fantasy are blurred, particularly when Frank imagines himself within the cinema screen. There had been rumblings that this was a musical (but it had been hidden in the marketing like with Joker: Folie à Deux) that is not the case, as really there is only one extended song and dance sequence, which is more of an electric, chaotic whirlwind than musical number.
Buckley is hamming it up to 100 here and showcases her range (this a far cry from her award sweeping turn in Hamnet). Bellowing, chirping, coughing, cackling, crying her way through multiple voices (sometimes within the same line) and throwing herself physically into the role with full commitment. I found Bale’s portrayal took a tad longer to warm to, but his bumbling, erratic turn into grinning, obsessive and excitable is locked in and his delivering of sincerity and wonder in the cinema moments adds passion and humanity to Frank. Penelope Cruz & Peter Sarsgaard add camaraderie to a fairly generic Detective pairing and Jake Gyllenhaal is clearly enjoying his extended cameo appearance.
The Bride! is an electrically charged punk rock infused big messy swing of a flick that certainly won’t be for everyone. Buckley and Bale are giving their all, the film looks fantastic and has a myriad of bonkers moments. However, its plot is as stitched together as Frank, tonal whiplash is unavoidable and I do wish certainly plot points were focused on more. That being said, it’s genuinely great to see an untampered vision on screen, so go and support!
'The Bride!' is out now in cinemas.
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