We went into The Bride with expectations. Coming out of it, we were still talking about it on the drive home. That does not happen every week. When a movie takes up that much space in your head on the way home, it earned it.
Written and directed by Maggie Gyllenhaal, The Bride is the latest reimagining of Bride of Frankenstein, the 1935 Universal classic that followed up the massively successful 1931 Frankenstein adaptation of Mary Shelley’s novel.
That original sequel was lauded as one of the best horror films Universal ever made; some people (ourselves included) would argue it surpassed the first film entirely. So the bar here was not low. Gyllenhaal does not trip over it.
Set in 1930s Chicago, the film stars Jesse Buckley as the bride, a murdered woman brought back to life as a companion for Frankenstein’s monster (Christian Bale), while a detective played by Peter Sarsgaard gets pulled into hunting them both down. That synopsis does not really capture what this movie actually is. But we will get there.
The Opening Nobody Expected
There is a prologue. And if you have never seen the 1935 film, you might watch the first few minutes of The Bride and think: what the hell is happening? That reaction is okay. Stay with it.
In the original Bride of Frankenstein, the film opens with Mary Shelley herself, played alongside her husband Percy Bysshe Shelley and Lord Byron, discussing the story she has more of to tell. Gyllenhaal lifts that idea and does something genuinely interesting with it. In this version, Mary Shelley (also played by Jesse Buckley) is frustrated. She has been dead all these years and never got to finish her story. So she fuses herself, through some supernatural means, into the consciousness of Ida, the woman who becomes the bride.
Arthur called it “a possession thing” and, honestly, that is a pretty accurate description. It is also so much more than that, but we appreciated the homage. The dual-casting of Buckley in both roles mirrors the original film’s choice to have Elsa Lanchester play both Mary Shelley and the bride, and the callback lands hard if you know to look for it. If you do not know, it still works.
That is just good filmmaking.
The title card sequence alone had Arthur declaring it “the best opening title card sequence ever.” Hard to argue. It sets the tone for a film that is confident it knows exactly what it is doing.
The Cast: Everybody Showed Up
Let us just say it plainly. This cast is stacked. And everyone in it is working.
Jesse Buckley is the movie. Full stop. She is playing two people simultaneously, switching between an American accent and an English accent mid-scene, all while carrying a fully Irish accent in real life. The physicality she brings to Ida, specifically the jerky, loose-limbed movements, especially in the dance sequences, is the kind of thing that makes you feel vaguely unqualified to watch it.
“I couldn’t look away from her,” Meaghan said. “Anytime any aspect of her was on screen I was just riveted.” Agreed. Every headline you have read about her performance in this film is correct.
Christian Bale does exactly what you expect from Christian Bale, which is to say he transformed himself completely and then had the restraint to not make it about himself. His Frank speaks slowly because the character’s brain genuinely struggles to keep up with speech, and Bale commits to that cadence throughout. It is a little unsettling in the best possible way.
You feel for him at certain points, which is the whole point of the Frankenstein’s monster character, before the film decides to firmly redirect where your sympathies should lie. “I think I would say for me it was the progression of his character,” Arthur said. “The way that Frankenstein’s character kind of came out of his shell and then they both played off of each other.” The writing behind those scenes is stellar.
Annette Bening as Doctor Euphronius is a highlight. She plays the mad scientist who actually seems to be doing science rather than cackling about playing God, and the scenes between her and Bale are funny in a dry, surprising way.
Penelope Cruz as Myrna (the detective’s assistant who does all the actual detecting) is sharp and easy to root for. She is the detective. She does all the detecting. The men around her just do not notice.
Peter Sarsgaard is doing his thing. Jake Gyllenhaal shows up as a slick, era-appropriate film star and gets more screen time than early descriptions of the role might suggest; Arthur clocked him at a solid ten to fifteen minutes once you factor in all the classic-style film sequences built around the character.
The chemistry across the whole ensemble is genuinely there. Meaghan put it best: “Jesse Buckley would have good chemistry with a lamppost.” Fair.
If Christian Bale and Jesse Buckley do not both receive Oscar nominations for this, we are going to riot. And considering Buckley already has one coming for Hamnet, that would be two years in a row. Some people just operate on another level.
Social Commentary That Does Not Club You Over the Head
This is where The Bride gets interesting in a way that a lot of films try and most fail. The social commentary in this movie is constant, but it is not loud about itself.
The 1930s Chicago setting is not just aesthetic. It is doing real work. The mob bosses who run everything treat the women around them as disposable by design. Myrna’s expertise and intelligence are ignored by every man in the room. Ida’s history before her death involves violence that the film does not flinch from. All of this accumulates.
And then the bride starts talking. She kicks off a movement. There is a party scene that Meaghan called her favorite in the entire film, where Ida holds Ronnie (Jake Gyllenhaal’s character) at gunpoint, makes him kneel, and asks him what exactly he is apologizing for. “Sorry, what are you sorry for? Do you have something to apologize for that you thought you wouldn’t get caught?” That kind of line is sharp precisely because it does not explain itself. You get it, or you do not.
Meaghan made a comparison that stuck: “The interpretation of that and the way that’s interpreted on screen, I found the social aspect of that to me was a better version of Joker. The kind of movement that it sparks with people.” That is a strong take. We stand behind it. The film earns that read because it is never screaming at you about its themes. They are just there, embedded in the story, all the time.
Arthur made the point well: it is not too much in your face, which is what makes it land. “There’s a different story to tell, but there’s always that undertone of it that is always present.” That balance is harder to pull off than it looks. Gyllenhaal pulls it off.
The violence in the film is worth mentioning here, too. The kills are abrupt, gritty, and feel grounded even inside the surrealist aesthetic around them. “It wasn’t cartoonish,” Arthur said. Correct. They hit differently because they feel real, and that contrast with everything else going on around them actually makes them hit harder.
The Standout Sequence and Why It Works
The party scene is the centerpiece of the film. Both of us felt that independently. Meaghan put it clearly: “It’s the centerpiece of the film, almost.”
The dance that Jesse Buckley does in that sequence is one of the best things we have seen on screen in a while. The chandelier coming down, the lights cutting out, the slow-motion shatter. It is a big, theatrical moment, but it earns every second of it because of what has been building. The film tracks how wild and untethered Ida and Frank are getting, and this is the peak of that arc before the police close in, and things start winding down. Arthur called it “the peak of the movie in terms of sequence.” It is exactly where the pivot should be, and it is executed beautifully.
The movie also does something fun with films-within-the-film. Jake Gyllenhaal’s character is a vintage film star, and we actually see those old-style movies in full, not just as set dressing. There is a bit where Frank imagines himself in one of them, which is both funny and a little touching.
Arthur liked this a lot. “It kind of brought that extra element,” he said. “It’s like you’re watching a movie in a movie.” The moment when other people start actually seeing the monsters in the movies they are watching is a small, weird, great touch. Inception-style, but make it a 1930s monster horror. We are here for it.
The physicality throughout deserves its own mention. The way Ida moves at the club early in the film, the way Frank’s speech pattern is just slightly off from normal human timing, and the way the surrealism is carried in the body language of these characters, as much as in the visual design. It all coheres into something that feels very specifically directed, not just shot.
The Third Act Wobble and the Final Score
We have to be honest about this. The third act drags.
There are scenes in the back half of The Bride that did not need to be there. The pacing in the final stretch gets too slow, and the movie lingers past the point where it should have trusted itself and moved on. Both of us felt this independently. “There’s definitely some stuff that we didn’t need to have,” Meaghan said. Arthur put it plainly: “There’s some stuff in the third act that just kinda really slowed down way too much.”
It is not a fatal flaw. It does not undo everything that came before it. But it does mean this film lands in the high-good-to-great category rather than outright masterpiece territory, which it might have otherwise occupied.
Critics have said there are too many ideas packed into this film. We disagree with that read. The ideas are not the problem. The execution is mostly excellent. It is specifically those final sequences where the film loses its grip slightly, and you feel the runtime.
Final scores: Meaghan at an 8 out of 10, Arthur at a 7 to 7.5. Those numbers feel right. This is a film well worth your time, stacked with performances that will get award attention, doing something genuinely interesting with the source material. Jesse Buckley and Christian Bale are both extraordinary here. The visual language is distinctive. The social undercurrent is intelligent without being preachy.
And we are absolutely expecting The Bride Halloween costumes everywhere this October. We called it early.
What We Are Watching Next
March is shaping up to be a genuinely good month for horror, and we are not taking that for granted.
Undertone comes out next week. If you are not familiar with it yet, go look it up. It is essentially a horror movie made specifically for horror podcast audiences, which is very much our kind of thing. Early reactions from screenings have called it very scary, and we are ready for that auditory experience.
The week after that, Ready or Not, Here I Come hits. And then to close out the month, They Will Kill You. That is three horror releases in three consecutive weeks. March is delivering.
We also recently dropped our interview with Mark Acheson, who you may know from Silent Night Deadly Night and Elf and a whole lot else. That episode is up now, and it was a genuinely fun conversation.
We also spoke with Eric Miller, a Bram Stoker-nominated horror author and award-winning screenwriter who has a serious list of credits to his name. We talked books, movies, the behind-the-scenes reality of how films actually get made, and horror sub-genre crossover. That one is coming out soon, possibly as a bonus episode, so keep an eye out.
We may also have another interview coming with another member of the Silent Night Deadly Night family in the near future. No spoilers yet. And we are doing some things with our friends over at Horror Roulette Podcast in the coming weeks as well.
Until next time, stay scared and stay tuned.