The Bride! Review: Jessie Buckley Anchors Maggie Gyllenhaal's Ambitious Film

Jessie Buckley and Christian Bale play a pair of unnaturally born killers in The Bride!, Maggie Gyllenhaal’s bold, busy feminist reworking of 1935’s The Bride of Frankenstein. Gyllenhaal wrote the script and aims to give the title character the voice she lacked in the original, and Buckley’s forceful performance keeps the film moving even as its many ambitions threaten to overwhelm it.

The plot begins with Ida, a drunken plaything who dies and is reborn as the bride, and follows Frank, Frankenstein’s monster, whose longing for love is shaped by the movie musicals he devours starring Ronnie Reed. Dr. Euphronious helps revive a recently deceased woman and the pair escape into the neon wilds of 1930s Chicago and New York.

Visually the film is rich: production designer Karen Murphy and cinematographer Lawrence Sher flood the story with the colors and moods of film noir, black-and-white musicals, Badlands-style dramas and rave culture.

United States, Chicago, New York

jessie buckley, maggie gyllenhaal, christian bale, the bride, frankenstein's monster, film noir, 1930s chicago, lawrence sher, karen murphy, ronnie reed