Movie review: 'The Bride!' is possessed by righteous power
by Fred Topel · UPILOS ANGELES, March 4 (UPI) -- Channeling both the literature and persona of Mary Shelley, The Bride!, in theaters Friday, crafts a monstrous love story seething with righteous indignation. Writer/director Maggie Gyllenhaal follows her heart in abstract directions that serve the piece.
The spirit of Mary Shelley (Jessie Buckley) is trapped in an afterlife purgatory. She is determined to bring her follow-up to Frankenstein to the world, so she possesses Ida (also Buckley) in 1936 Chicago.
Ida's possessed outbursts get her pushed down the stairs, breaking her neck. Soon after, Frankenstein's monster (Christian Bale), taking his creator's name, visits Chicago scientist Dr. Euphronius (Annette Bening) to create a partner for him.
By this point, Gyllenhaal has already laid out her thesis statement and they haven't even resurrected Ida yet. Ida is dead because she made the mistake of speaking up to misogynistic men, and even Frankenstein made the mistake of assuming Dr. Euphronius would be a man.
The good doctor used her first initial for that very reason. In 1936 society and medical communities she had to be ambiguous and allow those assumptions to even practice her craft.
There's also the ghost of Mary Shelley. Her novel does conclude with the creature demanding a partner, and that is the basis of James Whale's sequel, Bride of Frankenstein.
The film notes that Shelley only became an author on a dare, which history sets during a holiday with Lord Byron. She was also steeped in her father, William Godwin's politics, and though she died shortly after giving birth, her mother was women's activist Mary Wollstonecraft, which has factored into readings of Frankenstein.
So when Euphronius resurrects Ida, she is still erratic with free associations on the subjects with which she's faced. She also quotes Herman Melville's line, "I would prefer not to," using it to assert autonomy rather than Melville's character Bartleby, who was truly passive.
Ida fits in at a punk dance club where they don't question her appearance and just let her dance with them. The chemicals Euphronius used stained Ida's skin and tongue in a pattern that will become iconic later.
By this point, too, Frankenstein has taken in the films of Fred Astaire surrogate Ronnie Reed (Jake Gyllenhaal) and imagines himself dancing with Ida as his Ginger Rogers. Whether Frankenstein's fantasy sequences or choreographed routines in Ida's real world, Gyllenhaal never explains the dancing. She rightfully assumes there can just be dancing in a movie.
Alas, two men follow Frankenstein and Ida out of the club. They try to walk away but the men force Frankenstein to retaliate in self-defense.
Taking lives is, unfortunately, a regrettable fact of a persecuted existence, and Ida will eventually have to do so herself. Frankenstein only alludes to having been through this before, but he need not mean the events of the film. The world provokes people who are different and blames them when they stand up for themselves.
As Frankenstein and Ida take a train to New York, Detective Wiles (Peter Sarsgaard) and his secretary Myrna Malloy (Penelope Cruz) investigate the trail of bodies the monsters leave behind.
The detectives are also dealing with sexism as a local sheriff dismisses Myrna. Wiles plays along to get information, calling himself Myrna's girl Friday, but she still resents that it's even an issue.
The film's outrage over gender inequality is still relevant in 2026. Ida eventually inspires women to paint their faces like her stains to rage against misogyny, in a look destined for Halloween parties this October.
Wiles points out the film's message in that regard. Ida's violence inspires women in similar circumstances, but positive achievements by women don't enjoy the same curiosity, let alone copycats. So too, Gyllenhaal had to make a violent, sexy horror movie to tell people to listen to women.
Still, The Bride! only addresses social issues as a function of the characters' emotions. Ida is trying to remember herself before her death, and further sexism is triggering. She ends up saying "me too" by the end but it is organic to her story.
She is also with a companion who is lying to her. Frankenstein told her that they knew each other before her death, so even if they connect, it is under false pretenses.
Granted, even as a re-animated creature, it would be difficult for Frankenstein to explain, "We dug you up and brought you back to life." His initial meetings with Euphronius also explore how challenging his ask is, though the scientific potential is too seductive for her to refuse.
There are so many interesting ideas in The Bride!, the film doesn't always get to spend as much time with each of them, particularly the movement Ida inspires. The film introduces the detective plot an hour in, and there was already a Chicago mafia subplot which led to the crowd with which Ida associated.
Shelley's interruptions appear irregularly too. The conceit is so monumental, it warrants a more consistent throughline.
Still, Gyllenhaal has crafted an avant-garde blend of abstract fantasy and social injustice via the tale of lovebirds on a murder spree. It's self-defense, but it's the Bonnie & Clyde paradigm with Mary Shelley's characters and spirit.
Fred Topel, who attended film school at Ithaca College, is a UPI entertainment writer based in Los Angeles. He has been a professional film critic since 1999, a Rotten Tomatoes critic since 2001, and a member of the Television Critics Association since 2012 and the Critics Choice Association since 2023. Read more of his work in Entertainment.