When I first heard that Maggie Gyllenhaal was set to direct a film inspired by Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, specifically its 1935 filmic sequel Bride of Frankenstein, my first reaction was, “Another one?!” This response largely stemmed from a recent influx of Frankenstein-inspired material, from the success of Guillermo del Toro’s Oscar-winning Frankenstein to Yorgos Lanthimos’ female-centric depiction of the reanimated dead in his 2023 film, Poor Things. The foundations laid in Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel, and James Whale’s film adaptations in the 1930s, have provided a fertile source of inspiration for over a hundred years—so what does The Bride! offer to audiences who are all too familiar with the classic story?

Even after watching Gyllenhaal’s two-hour plus, ambitious reworking, I still don’t have the answer. While other adaptations seem to retell the classic gothic tale or depart from it entirely, The Bride! promises to do something different. The titular bride of the 1935 classic film is afforded fewer than five minutes of screentime, in which she rejects The Monster before being destroyed in the film’s final moments. Gyllenhaal sets out to breathe life into this largely disregarded character in this contemporary version, establishing her a vibrant and vocal agent of change rather than a mere female companion.

Despite the obvious associations with monster films of the 1930s, Gyllenhaal’s The Bride! is a marriage of many influences. Forgoing desolate mountains for the grungy cityscapes of 1930s Chicago, the characters’ world is a familiar—albeit unexpected—one. With mobsters, and a sleuthing Penelope Cruz and charming Peter Sarsgaard playing the detective duo, the film strongly evokes the defining gangster narratives of the era. Jessie Buckley’s Ida, as The Bride is known pre-reanimation, meets a violent end after a possession at the hands of Mary Shelley’s ghost, who acts as a kind of puppeteer, playing out the story of her untold sequel. Ida is dug up and brought to life by female ‘mad scientist’ Dr Euphronius, played by Anette Benning, and Christian Bale’s desperately lonely Frankenstein, named so “after [his] father”. The two monsters then embark on a Bonnie and Clyde-esque escapade, marked by a choreographed dance number or two, and the frequent appearance of Jake Gyllenhaal as fictional Fred Astaire counterpart, Ronnie Reed. 

Reading at once like an ode to the 1930s and a crime-drama romance with a girl-power feminist spin, this is a film trying to be many things—ironic in that it depicts a character who rejects many names in the search for a concrete identity. The result is an overstuffed plot that simplifies its own message with a failure to explore the implications of 1930s womanhood beyond extreme examples of male violence. The statement from the film’s outset that it is “worst of all, a love story” seems to oddly diverge from the original source material. In Bride of Frankenstein, The Bride rejects the monster for whom she was created, while The Bride! adheres to a more conventional romance arc. In many ways, the action sequences and the characters’ physical journey overshadow the emotional thread that only feels prioritised at the film’s conclusion.

Once voiceless, and still nameless, The Bride’s search for a new identity is engaging, and at times deeply moving. While superficial identities come and go, it is up to the ‘monsters’ to make peace with their realities in a world that is rigidly opposed to their existence. While the monster of James Whale’s 1935 film condemns himself, the bride, and the evil Dr Pretorius to death, proclaiming, “We belong dead”, his reassurance in The Bride! that “There is nothing left to do now but live”, propels ‘Frank’ and The Bride’s journey forward and fosters their unconventional connection to one another. 

This disjointed film is held together by Buckley’s magnetic performance as The Bride, who alternates between frustrated amnesiac and Shelley-hijacked agent of chaos with ease. With her recent string of award ceremony victories for her performance in Hamnet, this is no surprise, yet to see her embody The Bride’s unhinged physicality is striking, and a testament to her craft. Dressed boldly with an inky splatter-stained mouth and a shock of frazzled hair that nods to Elsa Lanchester’s iconic 1935 performance, it is hard to look away from Buckley, despite the madness and occasional incoherence of the film. Bale too brings humanity and tenderness to the role of Frankenstein’s monster, who, in popular culture, is too often depicted as grunting and brutish.

The film seems intent on being radical and shocking, but while it subverts tropes of the 1930s film, it falls victim to other cliches, such as lovers on the lam and the accidental revolution. Even the film’s message of female empowerment is diluted by the overused refrain, “I would prefer not to”. Upon peeling back the layers of extraneous plot and action however, the heart of the film is still moving and has something worthwhile to say about the connotations of the ‘female monster’ and personal agency. The intention of the film is admirable, yet it leaves audiences with more questions than answers, and with the setting underdeveloped, characters are left somewhat hollow amidst a rambling plot.

Watching The Bride! is a captivating experience, yet the emotional core of the film is lost in too many layers of extra wrapping—and I’m not quite sure the final gift is worth the effort.