The Bride! (2026)

Full review: https://fandomwire.com/the-bride-review/

Rating: A-

"The Bride! establishes itself as one of the year's most unique experiences, where Maggie Gyllenhaal's bold vision and a vibrant punk-rock aesthetic are anchored by the visceral performances of Jessie Buckley and Christian Bale. Encompassed in Hildur Guðnadóttir's somber score, the movie transforms gothic horror into a profound reflection on loneliness and the search for identity. It's a triumph of audacity that places autonomy at the center of a classic myth, challenging us to embrace our own imperfections. It'll certainly be one of the most striking films of the year, becoming the "movie to beat" from here on out."

Maggie Gyllenhaal is going for something here, but the problem is that The Bride! has far too many things going on at once and never capitalizes on any of them; even the romance isn’t constant. The idea of these two born-again corpses having nothing together is this half-baked idea drowned out by Frank’s sobbing dick and the bride constantly reminding everyone with a pair of eyes and working ears that she’s an entitled, calamitous shrew. The Bride! is a two-hour hodgepodge of dancing, movie-obsessed nonsense.

Full review: https://www.giantfreakinrobot.com/ent/horror/the-bride-review.html

Despite the best efforts of the pyromaniacs the creation of “Dr. Frankenstein” (Christian Bale) has survived, and now over a century later is a bit horny. Determined to find himself a companion, he visits the Chicago laboratory of “Dr. Euphronious” (Annette Bening) with his request. Well, it ends up being more of a demand really and so she reluctantly agrees to indulge in a bit of body snatching/reinvigorating. Their corpse? Well we’ve already met “Ida” (Jessie Buckley) before her demise and, personally, I felt death might have been the best thing that could have happened to this vulgar, brash and loud-mouthed creature. Revitalised, she and her new beau “Frankie” set off on some adventures around the city that start to fill in some blanks about both of their lives; involve a gangster kingpin and a dashing Hollywood movie star (Jake Gyllenhaal) upon whom he is fixated. The cops are never far away, especially as their escapades result in even more dead bodies - including a cop or two, so detective “Wiles” (Peter Skarsgaard) and his secretary “Malloy” (Penélope Cruz) are on soon their case and things take a turn for the Bonnie and Clyde. Now, there’s no denying that Buckley, especially, puts her heart and soul into her lively performance here, but I found the characterisation so un-engaging that after about half an hour of the relentlessly paced dialogue accompanying the borderline slapstick comedy I had lost interest. It takes far too long to get up and running and though it’s a grand looking production the thing just never got out of second gear as it quite literally lurched along for a long old two hours. Cruz plays as if she really wanted to be in - or maybe even thought this was - a very wordy “Dick Tracey” movie, and I found that both leading performers seemed more determined to impress us watching rather than present us with anything like a real love story. I suppose the very nature of the science behind this will allow for a sequel, but I think I will just stick with my James Whale collection instead.

This was visually incredible and appreciating it requires a deep focus - homages abound. The Bride's word salad spewings are super important, and if you pay attention, fill in many of the plot details that other movies will spoon feed their audience. Some things did not make sense when I first heard them, but as I think about the movie, they are gradually snapping into place. The visuals were really interesting and worked well in Imax. The Imax sound in the theater I was in, was not the quality I expected, but this was the theater's fault, not the movie's. I will watch it again because I feel that there are many more word puzzles to be solved.

I had such high hopes and expectations for Maggie Gyllenhaal's directorial debut.
Jessie Buckley and Christian Bale are brilliant, but alas, they couldn't even save 'The Bride'.

I found myself wishing that Buckley's 'Ida' would pick a personality and stick with it.
I felt that way more so for the continuity and interest in the story than anything else.

Bales interpretation of 'The Monster' was as nuanced as I had hoped it would be, his need for human interaction was palpable.

Buckley switching from an American accent to a British one was kind of ironic in my eyes, but appreciated as she is flawless when it comes to accents (American, Russian, etc.)

The director clearly had a vison, but sadly Ms. Gyllenhaal missd the mark, she may have achieved HER vision, but it did not line up with the vision that would entice movie fans.

myself included.