The Bride review: An ambitious and stylish monster movie that doesn't entirely cohere

James Whale’s Bride of Frankenstein (1935) starring Boris Karloff and the luminous Elsa Lanchester remains a playful, witty follow-up to the English director’s seminal version of Frankenstein (1931), and is often cited as a sequel superior to its acclaimed original, along with the likes of The Godfather Part II, The Empire Strikes Back and The Dark Knight.

Writer/director Maggie Gyllenhaal’s re-imagining of the 1935 Universal masterpiece is playful, too, boldly locating to mid-1930s America where the Monster or “Frank” (played by a suitably stitched-and-stapled Christian Bale) has reached the end of his tether after being alone for over a century.

His desire for a mate brings the patchwork Romeo to the door of Chicago scientist Dr Euphronius (Annette Bening), whose work in reinvigorating the dead offers lovelorn Frank the chance to have a companion just like him. All they need is a recently deceased corpse…

Enter Jessie Buckley as Ida, whose sudden transformation from glum gangster’s moll to dangerously gobby harridan is all down to being possessed by novelist Mary Shelley (also played by Buckley, emulating the monochrome framing device from the 1935 original). Here, the Frankenstein author occupies a shadowy netherworld where she bemoans her lack of agency in life and so injects her proto-feminist ire into Ida, only to put the poor girl in an early pauper’s grave and become the ideal candidate for revival.

Indeed, it is Shelley who poses the question from the outset whether the unfurling tale will be “a ghost story, a horror story or most frightening of all, a love story?”

In her second film behind the camera (following The Lost Daughter in 2021), Gyllenhaal attempts to harness all those elements, while adding in plenty of genre-mashing moments.

From Frank’s love of movie musicals, encapsulated by song-and-dance matinee idol Ronnie Reed (Jake Gyllenhaal), to the unnatural born killers later embarking on a Bonnie and Clyde-style joyride across America, the sophomore director delivers some eye-catching sequences, not least when the newly-deads gatecrash New York high society and perform a raucous dance routine to Puttin’ on the Ritz (wryly referencing Mel Brooks’s sublime spoof Young Frankenstein).

Also, dogging their heels is dour detective Jake Wiles (played by Maggie Gyllenhaal's husband, Peter Sarsgaard) and his smart secretary/assistant Myrna Malloy (Penélope Cruz), who has her own fight to be taken seriously in a man’s world, conjuring up such battle-of-the-sexes classics like The Thin Man and His Girl Friday, albeit without the quickfire patter.

Buckley is mesmerising as the Bride, recalling Lanchester with her frizzy blonde hair in a vertical state of shock, but with her face stained by a distinctive Rorschach inkblot and sporting black bee-stung lips. This year’s favourite to win the best actress Oscar (for Hamnet) has a ball here, dovetailing wildly between a loud Chicago broad, a well-spoken if tetchy Shelley and an amnesiac punk-rock monster, even during a single conversation.

Meanwhile, Bale channels Karloff and gives a restrained, sympathetic performance as a world-weary creation who would rather woo than wound.

Gyllenhaal should be applauded for her ambition, stylish flourishes and obvious respect for the original film. However, there’s a sense that all the elements don’t cohere entirely, with subplots involving the Chicago Mob and even the Sarsgaard/Cruz dynamic just getting in the way of the couple’s bizarre but captivating cross-country courtship. Pity, because the stars, the roving cinematography and Sandy Powell’s costumes are all first-class.

The Bride is released in UK cinemas on Friday 6 March 2026.

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