The Bride! Movie Review

I want you to see this, but not because the movie has a cohesive storyline that will keep you invested… it doesn’t. ​
It veers off on many a strange path. A great deal, in fact, that it’ll crinkle your forehead, creating wrinkles. I want you to see it for Jessie Buckley. Gyllenhaal, the director, did the right thing by casting her! You can see that she starts the film with the Bonafide aim of creating something new for us… the story of Frankenstein’s monster and the woman who caught his eye. This is not a direct reimaging of “The Bride of Frankenstein.” That said, Gyllenhaal wanted to give you a more unique focus on her, giving you less of who usually gets all the attention.

Sadly, the film didn’t flow well. It felt, I think, jumbled up might be the right way to say it. Like a puzzle you want so desperately to put together to see it form, but it doesn’t quite come together properly. The opening prologue tells that Mary Shelley wrote the original story of Frankenstein on a dare. That’s how easy it was for her. In this story, it’s she herself, possessing the mind of a woman, Ida (Jessie Buckley), to get back into life as the monster does, and, why not, two minds are better than one, right? Now you have the pearl and the oyster! Her mind was batty, asking the actress to be both Ida and Mary, constantly having conversations with one another, or with others. It shows Buckley’s depth. Her performance is sensational and a must-see; the line, “Here comes the mother fucking Bride,” is… needed and welcomed when said.

The monster, called Frank, played by Christian Bale, is a bit of a romantic. He loves going to the theater and imagines he’s the lead, dancing on screen. Maybe he can be like this guy. The character is played by Maggie’s brother, Jake Gyllenhaal. Frank meets up with a scientist named Dr. Euphronius (Annette Bening). He needs a cure for his loneliness, explaining to her that it’s an emergency. He wants to know love and even have sex… all the things he never got to when alive, he wants to experience now. She must reinvigorate a woman for him. Knowing what that would entail, she tells him she understands his agony but that there are easier ways of getting sex. There is so much that can go wrong with what he is proposing. He gets angry, and soon after, they are in a grave, digging up a young woman who had just died, our Ida.

Eventually, Gyllenhaal has Frank and his woman on the run, what monster movie wouldn’t? He tries to get her to safety, but she stays with him. Now we have a “Bonnie and Clyde” story running, which hurts the film’s overall tone. You’re weary. What’s the theme exactly? It gets a bit flat. I didn’t hate or love it. I was entertained. The cinematography was good, especially when focusing on Frank’s and his bride’s eyes. They popped, and you saw that when they looked at one another, there was a lot going on behind them. He was in love. They both struggled to perceive the love they had desired and maybe… felt? They had their new and old lives at war with one another, the film asked, which would win?

To wrap up, the movie has pacing issues. It takes too much time to feel for the main characters. You see their love, which works for you, but the story was all over the place. There’s no real structure. Bale doesn’t give anything spectacular, but it wasn’t asked of him. Buckley was at the top of her game. She will probably get the Academy Award for Best Actress of 2025. She just might be getting it for 2026, as well. I’m calling it… she will. (Fingers crossed)! This isn’t necessarily a theater watch. However, for her, you might want to consider going rather than watching it at home. Be sure to listen to the end credit song and for a little mid-credit scene.