150 Word Review: 'The Bride!' (2026)

Dearly departed

Mar 10, 2026

Director Maggie Gyllenhaal’s follow-up to The Lost Daughter reunites her with fearless Jessie Buckley in a high-concept, big-budget monster mash-up of Bride of Frankenstein and Bonnie & Clyde. And it’s a mess. But so are chili dogs, and they’re delicious. The Bride!’s main problem is that it’s just too much of everything, all at once. Gyllenhaal’s feminist shock opera wants to be funny and romantic, and punk rock. At its best, the movie is unhinged.

Set in a stylized Weimar Chicago, The Bride! tells the tale of a lonely monster who begs a mad scientist to resurrect a dead woman. Gyllenhaal is best served by Christian Bale as Frankenstein’s monster. Bale is heartfelt, a stitched-together pile of meat who loves musicals. Does Buckley also play the ghost of Mary Shelley? Yes! It makes no sense.

Art isn’t a competition, but The Bride! has more juice than Del Toro’s lifeless Frankenstein.