{"id":32498,"date":"2026-03-10T15:32:00","date_gmt":"2026-03-10T19:32:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/irishexaminerusa.com\/wp\/?p=32498"},"modified":"2026-03-13T05:35:48","modified_gmt":"2026-03-13T09:35:48","slug":"in-this-beautiful-mutation-of-a-classic-horror-film-director-maggie-gyllenhaal-gives-latitude-to-jessie-buckley-and-christian-bale-to-put-their-own-stamp-on-this-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/irishexaminerusa.com\/wp\/?p=32498","title":{"rendered":"In This Beautiful Mutation of a Classic Horror Film, Director Maggie Gyllenhaal Gives Latitude to Jessie Buckley and Christian Bale to Put Their Own Stamp on This Story"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Review by Brad Balfour, Arts Editor
 
Film: “The Bride!” 
Director: Maggie Gyllenhaal
Cast: Jessie Buckley, Christian Bale, Peter Sarsgaard, Pen\u00e9lope Cruz, Annette Bening, Jake Gyllenhaal
 
In Maggie Gyllenhaal\u2019s \u201cThe Bride!\u201d \u201cFrankenstein\u201d author Mary Shelley speaks from the afterlife, saying she has a story she wants to tell after her famous tale, but could not due to her death. So she possesses Ida, a woman living in 1936 Chicago. Consummate actor Jessie Buckley is tasked with switching back and forth from each character who, in her trance, discusses the criminal activities of crime boss Lupino. Lupino’s henchmen Clyde and James discreetly kill Ida afterward.
 
Then there\u2019s \u201cThe Bride\u201d \u2014 the wife that Frankenstein’s monster, who calls himself “Frank,” wants to have animated from a dead body, in this case Ida\u2019s. He arrives at the Chicago-based house of scientist Dr. Cornelia Euphronius (Annette Bening). Frank has read Euphronius’ work on reanimation, so he enlists her to create a companion after a century of loneliness. Euphronius and Frank get Ida’s corpse and successfully revive her, but she lost her memory in the process. Frank takes advantage of this and states that she is his Bride and lost her memory in an accident, which she accepts.
 
These three separate and competing personalities \u2014 gangster moll Ida, the ghost of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, and the eponymous Bride \u2014 all lurk in one body. They emerge at various times throughout the film, confusing both the audience and the other characters within the story’s framework.
 
If this sounds bizarre, it is. The film is a very surreal rethinking of the original story and makes these two characters into personalities that are unlikely and unexpected in the extreme. While Buckley doesn’t really look like she\u2019s been reconstructed, she has odd facial blemishes and other strange markings that suggest she is some kind of creation. Bale\u2019s Frank does have the stitches and staples the original monster had, but they don\u2019t seem to make him appear monstrous on the face of it (so to speak).
 
The monstrous side of him appears when he\u2019s agitated. And he gets agitated as authorities and the public misunderstand who they are. So they resort to guns and killing to force their way through human society. Along the way they also sing and dance to favorite tunes of the time. Yes, sing and dance. Kind of like \u201cYoung Frankenstein\u201d but not comically.
 
Buckley \u2014 the likely future Oscar-winner \u2014 plays every tic and gesture with aplomb. If nothing else, it shows her range in light of the character she plays in “Hamnet.” The film\u2019s tonal extremes and expansive leaps in logic are not always bridged effectively, but it remains strangely compelling to watch. Buckley throws herself skillfully into the performance, and Bale plays a more tragic, lonely monster than usual. The result is a film that feels like a Frankenstein creature itself: stitched together from a dozen influences and never quite coherent, but it sure does leave a spectacular looking trail of nonsense in its wake.
 
The film reimagines the Frankenstein myth not as a tale of scientific arrogance, but as a psychotic, twisted and deeply tragic love story about what happens when a woman refuses to exist for someone else\u2019s need. Bale\u2019s Frankenstein is very different. The actor portrays him as a man deeply hurt by loneliness. You can clearly feel loneliness in his gaze toward others and in his quiet, careful movements. Frankenstein believes that creating a companion will solve his emptiness, but he underestimates the complexity of what he is asking for. And the results are sort of tragic.
 
The movie is absurd on almost every level, but is interesting with so many ideas and images, that it can\u2019t be categorized as a failure. Are horror tropes sacrosanct? Well. if you watch Maggie G\u2019s version of \u201cThe Bride,\u201d it may step into the world of monster horror and sci-fi, but it defies expectations as well. 
Nothing is sacred here \u2014 certainly nothing within the realm of our expectations of the Frankenstein novel and the mythic character that Mary Shelley created. While Guillermo del Toro\u2019s version treats the “Frankenstein” story with a certain delicacy, Maggie’s version stomps all over the manuscript. A singing and dancing Bride and Frank \u2014 why not? This may not be great cinema, but it certainly stretches the boundary of what cinematic storytelling is about.<\/p>\n

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