52 Films by Women Vol 10. 11. THE BRIDE! (Director: Maggie Gyllenhaal)

 

Pictured: Frankenstein at the Movies. Or rather his creature (Christian Bale), as seen in writer-director Maggie Gyllenhaal's Marmite 'monster' 1930s road movie, 'The Bride!'. Still courtesy of Warner Bros 

Few sophomore films from acclaimed directors are as bat sh-t crazy as writer-director Maggie Gyllenhaal’s The Bride. Her follow-up to The Lost Daughter portrays Frankenstein’s creation (Christian Bale), broadly as imagined in the 1931 Boris Karloff picture and its 1935 sequel, as a lonely film addict seeking a female companion. This reanimated figure, the subject of Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel, appears to have been brought to life in the 1930s rather than a century earlier. Gyllenhaal presents the creature (let’s not use the word ‘monster’) as a child of cinema doomed to impersonate past – and future – portrayals of itself, imagining itself as a song and dance man rather than forever pursued by an angry mob - though the latter is inevitable. The creature is fundamentally unconcerned with – or by – the human condition. It is a being brought to life by electricity obsessed only with images and sound made possible by electricity. The creature isn’t a narcissist though, rather locked into an infinity loop of self-regard to which there is no escape.

However, Gyllenhaal’s entry point to the world of Frankenstein’s creation isn’t the creature, rather the author Mary Shelley (Jessie Buckley), a woman portrayed in black and white who speaks to the audience in a void – limbo. In order to demonstrate that she wanted to write a far more radical text than ‘Frankenstein’, she possesses the body of Ida (also Buckley), a Chicago goodtime girl in the employ of a gangster, Lupino (Zlatko Burić), who, shortly after voicing her possessor’s rage, is fatally thrown down a flight of stairs and given an (off-screen) pauper’s burial. (What’s a coroner’s report?) Gyllenhaal knows what we are thinking: Ida, Lupino, she’s paying homage to the British-born actress-turned-director who blazed a trail in the 1950s with her films, Outrage, The Hitchhiker and The Bigamist. Yes, Ida Lupino, without whom no actress might have imagined having a career behind the camera, though she directed more for television than cinema. Ida is dug up by noted scientist Dr Cornelia Euphronious (Annette Bening) upon the instigation of the creature and brought back to life, coughing up black ink in the process, the black splatter around one side of her mouth being a birthmark of sorts. She is a child of literature. Gyllenhaal’s central joke is that Ida is not instantly attracted to the creature. She has some memory of her life before and is still possessed by Mary Shelley, but her consciousness is fitful. Cornelia, who hid her first name when publishing her studies, is based loosely on Hedy Lamarr, another Hollywood trail blazer, and every woman – Rosalind Franklin, Marie Curie – who scientific accomplishments were side-lined by men.

Pictured: 'I guess I messed up with the Fountain Pen of Youth' Ida aka Penny aka The Bride (Jessie Buckley), the avatar of Mary Shelley in 'The Bride!', writer-director Maggie Gyllenhaal's 'Me Too' riff on 1930s monster movies. Still courtesy of Warner Bros. 

The Bride! is most emphatically not a horror film or monster movie. It is a fusion of road movie and gangster flick, with a dance number thrown in. Imagine Badlands with Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek replaced by two reanimated beings and you get some sense of the film. Instead of robbing people, the creature scours water fountains. My favourite scene is in Central Park when the creature stands up in one fountain and cries, ‘pennies’. Ida and the creature are mirrored by the police detectives on their tail, Jake Wiles (Peter Sarsgaard) and Myrna Malloy (Penélope Cruz), whose banter intentionally recalls Nick and Nora Charles, the creation of Raymond Chandler as featured in The Thin Man series of films and played by William Powell and Myrna Loy. Jake and Myrna aren’t married, and Myrna isn’t a proper cop, but they complement each other. Jake ‘does the seduction’ while Myrna picks up clues like a newspaper article relating to Robbie Reed (Jake Gyllenhaal), the musical star with whom the creature – call him Frank – is obsessed.

The reanimated couple experience a bad evening out amongst Chicago’s night owls. After ‘Frank’ expresses his reluctance to dance, two guys fixate on Ida and follow the couple outside. When Ida is attacked, ‘Frank’ steps into action, standing on the head of one of the men. Flash bulbs explode. ‘Frank’ and Ida go on the run like Bonnie and Clyde, jumping aboard a railroad car. Ida, still possessed by Mary Shelley, can’t stop talking, attracting the attention of a policeman, whom Frank pushes from the car. ‘Do you think he died?’ asks Ida afterwards. ‘Frank’ grunts in the affirmative.

Pictured: 'I order coffee, you'll have cigarettes.' Jake (Peter Sarsgaard) and Myrna (Penélope Cruz) in a scene from 'The Bride!', writer-director Maggie Gyllenhaal's 1930s set 'monsters on the run' movie. Still courtesy of Warner Bros

‘Frank’ and Ida steal numerous cars. Ida takes the wheel. ‘Frank’ describes how Robbie has two legs of different sizes, having had Polio as a child. One of his shoes is built up. In spite of his imperfection, he glides across the screen. When they arrive in New York, ‘Frank’ wants to watch his favourite Robbie Reed movie. Ida takes him to a 3D movie. Big mistake. The visit ends when the audience flees the cinema; Gyllenhaal shows ‘Frank’ and Ida on screen as if they were the stars of the film, now loose in the city.

In the film’s most bonkers sequence, they flee to a hotel and impersonate waiters. While Ida eats the contents of the tray she is carrying, ‘Frank’ meets Robbie Reed. He gets emotional, telling him that Reed is his reason for being. Reed is dismissive. ‘I wouldn’t want to be you,’ he remarks. ‘Frank’ responds not with rage but with melancholy. He howls, then impersonates his hero. Gyllenhaal goes further than you expect, having ‘Frank’ perform ‘Puttin’ on the Ritz’, a homage to Mel Brooks’ 1974 film, Young Frankenstein. It is the cinematic equivalent of breaking the fourth (or fifth) wall, a scene so meta, you either go with it, acknowledging that the whole film has no relation to reality, or recoil. For me, the scene represents the apotheosis of Gyllenhaal’s vision, that the creature would want to acknowledge every incarnation of ‘Frankenstein’s Monster’ that had ever entered the popular imagination. This excludes Robert de Niro’s performance in Kenneth Branagh’s film, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (not recalled fondly). Bale’s ‘Frank’ not only echoes past incarnations but is trapped by them; his performance is intentionally dialled back.

‘Frank’ decides to re-name Ida ‘Penny’. He has the long form of that name, ‘Penelope’ tattooed on his chest. Penelope and Annette are described as attractive names, referring to the stars playing human characters.

Meanwhile, the possessed Ida/Penny takes to quoting Herman Melville’s ‘Bartleby The Scrivener’, the employee who refused to work: ‘I prefer not to’. The film acknowledges the literary source of her refrain, though there is no logical reason why Mary Shelley would know Melville’s work, his short story being published in 1853, Mary Shelley having died in 1851. One imagines that limbo has a good library, though not much of a reading light. When possessed, Ida/Penny speaks with an English accent and erupts into monologues of word associations. Men respond by wanting to silence her. ‘Frank’ comes to her rescue. This is the case when, towards the end of the film, they are stopped by a police car, Ida/Penny unable to produce licence and registration. The policeman takes advantage. Gyllenhaal doesn’t soft pedal male presumptions on a vulnerable female. She has Ida/Penny say ‘what about me too? Me too,’ directly referencing the campaign of women to recount their exploitation in the entertainment industry.

In Gyllenhaal’s film, the men (‘Frank’, Jake) are meek while the women are enraged. Jake describes himself as corrupt, potentially working for gangster boss Lupino. Ida/Penny decides to re-brand herself ‘the Bride’ (so much for Frank’s tattoo of ‘Penelope’). The film builds to a set piece at a drive-in movie theatre at Niagara Falls where ‘Frank’ can be found.

The Bride also inspires women to copy her ink-spattered face and yell ‘brain attack’, rebelling against men. She becomes a style icon. Gyllenhaal herself cameos as one of the women covered in a veil who screams at the camera, leading by example.

Back in the 1930s, criminals on the lam might have ended up in the electric chair, which would have been to ‘Frank’ and the Bride’s advantage. That doesn’t happen, though Dr Euphronious’ assistance is required; her maid Greta (Jeannie Berlin) now wears the Bride’s make-up, having joined the revolution. Lupino has sent two hitmen to finish off the creatures. Myrna and the police have tracked them down. The ending is foretold. In a coda, Lupino is surrounded by women inspired by the Bride; Gyllenhaal is attentive to closing off loose ends.

The end credits are set to Bobby Pickett’s song, ‘Monster Mash’, another riff on screen creatures popular from the 1930s onwards. The Bride! is a film made without any regard to focus group testing or ‘elevated horror’. It exists in its own bubble. It is also a lot of fun. Nothing in it is cynical or careless. It is the sum of deliberate choices. It doesn’t end with Mary Shelley finding another subject to possess, though it could. It liberates its subject from a franchise. Buckley is terrific in the lead role – even better than in Hamnet, for which she won a Best Actress Academy Award. Mainstream audiences haven’t warmed to the movie, accounting for its low box office, but it bears the spark of its talented and idiosyncratic director.

Reviewed at Screen One, Cineworld Dover, Kent, Southern England, Tuesday 17 March 2026, 17:30 screening