Review: The Bride! (2026)

There's no shortage of revisionist monster movies these days, with both Guillermo Del Toro and Luc Besson bringing beloved Gothic literary classics (Frankenstein and Dracula, respectively) back to the big screen in recent months. Now Maggie Gyllenhaal--quite a name herself--throws her hat into the ring with The Bride! (The exclamation point is perhaps included to distinguish this 2026 movie from the 1985 movie starring Sting and Jennifer Beals.) This is Gyllenhaal's second feature film as writer/director and by far her most ambitious to date. 

The logline of this movie is simple: what if Frankenstein and his Bride were dropped into 1930s Chicago had had a crime spree akin to that of Bonnie and Clyde? Because this movie was made at Warner Bros. and not at Universal, we're not quite in  Boris Karloff and Elsa Lanchester territory here, though there are nods. Instead, this is the Frankenstein of Mary Shelley's original novel, erudite and civilized--until he isn't. Should I mention that the disembodied spirit of Shelley herself is the host of our tale, and that she's played by Jessie Buckley, the same actress who brings The Bride to life? The entire film is a showcase for Buckley, who absolutely owns this movie with a career-making performance. The fact that she's also getting buzz for another project at the same time (2025's Hamnet) signals the arrival of a star. 

The things that distinguish Gyllenhaal's movie are also very likely the things that keep it from completely working as a traditional film: the narrative is not Gyllenhaal's priority, and we're not always sure exactly what's happening or why. It leads to a deliberate disorientation that can make general audiences squirmy. Then again, this movie isn't really made for general audiences, and assumes a certain literacy in how movies work. Still, it features wild tonal shifts that swing between gruesome violence, dark comedy, and sometimes outright silliness. There's a full-blown musical rendition of "Puttin' On The Ritz" (complete with choreography) that directly calls back Mel Brooks' comedy classic Young Frankenstein. Yet all of this exists in a story in which our characters leave a bloody trail from Chicago to New York. This is Unnatural Born Killers--mad love with scars and formaldehyde. 

Further challenging the audience is the fact that the setting (1930s Chicago) and tropes (the monster craves companionship) that Gyllenhaal has selected are merely a container for what is essentially a "Me Too" story fueled by rage. None of these elements seem to be here by accident, but that doesn't mean that all of them work. There are also some supporting characters that seem either miscast or out of place here, delivering performances and even some clunky dialogue that hold the movie back from transcendence. 

But when it works, it's a lot of fun. Jessie Buckley and Christian Bale anchor the movie, and both actors give their all to the material and inhabit their roles perfectly. However, there's enough footage from the trailer that's missing in the final film to make me wonder if there were some post-production changes. Did the studio get involved and take the final cut away from Gyllenhaal? Was there trouble behind the scenes? 

One day we'll know. Until then, The Bride! is a sometimes-compelling movie with a fine performance from Christian Bale and a career-launching turn from Jessie Buckley, who carries the movie away single handedly. In a time when so many studio films are risk-averse, here's a movie that feels like leaping into a vat full of acid. It's amazing we still get movies like this...but I'm glad we do.