By Olivia Hunt, Second Year, English
I didn’t see much promotion for this film until I saw a Deadline interview with Maggie Gyllenhaal at one of the premiers for The Bride! (2026). When questioned about consent, she said it was key when galvanising her female creature, summarising the principle with ‘we’re not born as grown women’. This gave me a sense of hope for the film, as the iconic yet rendered invisible character from Mary Shelley’s 1816 text comes with her own sense of feminist ideas. However, what could have been an inspirational and fundamental piece of media based on a text heavily influenced by Mary Wollstonecraft’s own vindication is narrowed to a chaotic watch. Shelley is, unfortunately, rolling in her grave.
This film is a mess. Yet I love Gyllenhaal’s idea: Mary Shelley haunts a Female creature (Jessie Buckley), a 1930s twist on the creature (Christian Bale) who is somehow obsessed with the actor Ronnie Reed (Jake Gyllenhaal). The couple are hunted down by a detective duo (Penelope Cruz and Peter Sarsgaard) due to The Bride’s ties to a mafia case?
See how difficult it is to summarise. It’s extraordinary, but a little much to chew. I appreciate Gyllenhaal’s efforts in exploring feminist revolutions and I certainly have a Halloween costume lined up, ink and all, but the film is too in-your-face. The only thing really tying it together is Jessie Buckley’s performance; she is the star of the show!
Now, I don’t mean to be a pretentious English student but as someone who knows Frankenstein cover-to-cover, the script film felt cliché, even slightly cringey. A film-noir attempt of Shelley’s possession of Ida, match cutting between the dreamscape of Holbein-like chiaroscuro-lit close ups and Ida’s possessed movement in a restaurant is disturbingly confronting.
The dialogue mentions ‘Percy’ and ‘Keats’ in the first twenty minutes, and Frank/ Doctor Euphronius (Annette Benning) mention ‘1816’ and ‘Ingolstadt’ in their first conversation. The references are silly, and almost laughable. I was curling up in my seat at every allusion.
This 1930s re-imagining of Shelley’s novel is simultaneous with uncovering of another body of work: the fictional filmography of Ronnie Reed. After the film ended, I was having trouble with what Gyllenhaal was attempting to do. Frank has a panic attack and can only stabilise himself with Reed’s films.
I suppose it is trying to mirror the Creature’s obsession with the DeLacey’s, but Shelley’s depiction is supposed to show the growth of the Creature’s character as one without a childhood. In the film, Gyllenhaal parodies this parasocial relationship and turns Frank and Reed’s interactions into a musical-rendition at gun-point. This sub-plot fell a bit flat and seemed interesting from the detective’s viewpoint, but I remained less curious.
So much occurs in this film that I’m struggling to fit in all the details. It fluctuates between the spectrum of horror and comedy, with gory sequences from jars of decapitated tongues to Frank smashing the head of assaulters and plenty of bloody gun-fire. But then, Buckley’s switches between Shelley and The Bride seems comedic, as she spurs into poetic syntax, covered by burps, or vomit.
In the disgusting scientific visions of Victor Frankenstein and Dr Cornelia Euphronius, the cinematography remains gruesome and doesn’t shy from body horror. From one minute to the next, the film subverts any expectation as the couple somehow manage to escape from the police in a Bonnie and Clyde fashion.
Charles Hubbard
Ultimately, The Bride! Is shocking and confronting. Is it the best Frankenstein adaptation? Not at all. Is it fun and exhilarating? Yes!
Gyllenhaal is experimenting with an allegory that has become increasingly significant in the 21st century, questioning the ethics of science and sparking the story yet again back to life. What is already a chaotic story has become even more erratic, but perhaps too much. Albeit Jessie Buckley’s performance remains outstanding as The Bride’s ink-smeared persona.
Featured Image: IMDb | Illustration by Epigram / Sophia Izwan
Where would you rank The Bride! with the other Frankenstein film adaptations?
