A wild sophomore swing from Maggie Gyllenhaal as director, The Bride! re-imagines Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein as a quasi-musical, feminist-revenge, comic-horror romance. It doesn’t really work, but how could it? The fun here is in the audacious attempt and the performances. Jessie Buckley (who had a supporting part in Gyllenhaal’s debut, the intensely intimate The Lost Daughter) stars as Ida, a gangster moll in 1930s Chicago resigned to being groped—at least until the spirit of Mary Shelley possesses her body. In the aftermath, a newly unruly Ida is killed by her boyfriend, then resuscitated by an eccentric scientist (Annette Bening) and a motley mystery man named Frank (Christian Bale) who has been nursing his loneliness for over a century. Together, Ida and Frank become something of a Bonnie and Clyde, their crime spree interspersed with musical numbers inspired by Frank’s obsession with the movies of a Hollywood song-and-dance star (Gyllenhaal’s brother Jake). Working with cinematographer Lawrence Sher, best known for the Joaquin Phoenix Joker films, Gyllenhaal’s camera employs comic-book movements and angles throughout, giving a visual zip to the grim proceedings. Also lightening the mood are the performances. Bale’s riff on Frankenstein’s monster is his best turn in years; rather than leaning into the monstrosity, he performs as if he isn’t bearing ghastly gashes and scars, letting the makeup do its own work. As for Buckley, any career retrospective will rightly start with her Best Actress win for Hamnet, but it should make room for this burst of boisterous performativity. Buckley theatrically introduces the film as Shelley, stuck in some sort of dark purgatory. Once Ida is possessed, Buckley volleys back and forth between Ida’s Chicago moll yapping and Shelley’s loquacious, British sneers. Shelley scholars will likely have much to quibble with here, but for Buckley admirers, The Bride! is a must.
(3/18/2026)
