'The Bride!' Review
Image Source: Empire
“What’s my name? I can’t remember.”
Monsters seem to be all the rage nowadays. From Guillermo del Toro’s Oscar-nominated film Frankenstein to the revival of the Universal Monsters to Ryan Coogler making vampires scary again to even Marvel getting in on the action, it’s a good time to be a monster. However, it’s not a good time to be a woman director. Whether it’s the studio space or in indies, women are finding it harder than ever to get movies made. You would think in a post-Wonder Woman and post-Barbie world that women would be flooded with offers to direct more studio films, but sadly, we’re still seen as a risk. While male directors continue to be pulled from television, commercials, or short films, women aren’t given the same luxury. Recent box office failures of Madame Web and The Marvels don’t bode well for our future in the studio space, nor does the recent performance of the otherwise well-received 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple. The only two Star Wars movies with women directors attached are stuck in endless development hell. Patty Jenkins has essentially been in directors' jail since 2020. Ava DuVernay hasn’t been given the keys to a studio movie since 2018. Women-led blockbusters such as Wicked, Thunderbolts*, and the upcoming remakes of Moana and Tangled are all directed by men. The MCU and James Gunn and Peter Safran’s budding DCU have no signs of hiring women directors for future projects, with Marvel seemingly not having any female-led movies and Supergirl being handed to Craig Gillespie.
The Bride! is one of two major films from Warner Bros. directed by women this year, the other being last month’s Wuthering Heights. The long-awaited sophomore directorial effort from actress-turned-filmmaker Maggie Gyllenhaal has been in the spotlight since its announcement in 2024. An early marketing campaign, rumors of bad test screenings, the box-office decline of horror films, and the very fact that this is a blockbuster movie directed by a woman have created a whirlwind that has resulted in one of the most divisive studio films in quite a while. Some critics love this movie, and others do not. Count me in the former camp, because I absolutely adored this movie. While criticisms of the narrative being messy aren’t completely unfounded, The Bride! is Maggie Gyllenhaal, completely unleashed. It’s sprawling, it’s heartfelt, it’s funny, it’s thought-provoking, it’s scary, it’s Maggie Gyllenhaal announcing to the film world that she is a true visionary.
RELATED:
Image Source: The Hollywood Reporter
The Bride! is a complete 180 from Gyllenhaal’s directorial debut, The Lost Daughter, which earned three Oscar nominations, including a nomination for her for Best Adapted Screenplay. However, there are thematic throughlines between the two. Both are emotionally harrowing stories about flawed women trying to figure out who (or in the Bride’s case, what) they are. The Bride! asks a lot of questions and takes big swings, and while it may not always hit the ball, you can’t call it lazy. My biggest criticism of the film is that not every concept gets the full attention it deserves. I would’ve loved to have seen more scenes of the feminist revolution the title character inspires. Such an amazing concept that sadly doesn’t get a lot of screen time. However, this isn’t to say that Gyllenhaal doesn’t focus on interesting shit; she does. We follow our protagonist (played beautifully by the endlessly talented Jessie Buckley) and Frankenstein as their doomed love story takes the best elements of a feminist text, crime thriller, sci-fi epic, and a body horror film and turns it into a punk rock opus unlike anything any major studio has put out in my lifetime. Had the usual suspects of the Misogyny Slop Ecosystem (a term coined by feminist YouTuber OphieDokie) actually cared about this movie to make lazy content about how “woke” it is and how it encourages people to hate men. Maggie Gyllenhaal covers everything from the importance of bodily autonomy, sexual liberation, gender-motivated violence, sexual assault (thankfully not graphic enough that it comes off as salacious), and casual sexism in the workplace. Maggie Gyllenhaal is alive and pissed, and she wants everyone to know about it. Her screenplay may be messy in parts, but her direction is constantly on point. You can tell that she wasn’t including weird sci-fi shit just to seem cool. Yes, The Bride frequently talking to the ghost of Frankenstein author Mary Shelley is very strange. But it’s the perfect kind of strange.
Gyllenhaal’s ideas are carried beautifully by the cast. The aforementioned Jessie Buckley shines in every scene, proving her worth as one of the best actresses in the game right now. Her performance as the titular Bride goes places that if done by a slightly lesser actress would’ve torn the entire movie to shreds. Luckily, Buckley holds her own. The Bride is an insanely compelling anti-heroine, whose journey of self-discovery in a world that clearly doesn’t want her hits close to home (being a trans woman does that to you). Also compelling is Frankenstein's Monster, played by Maggie Gyllenhaal’s The Dark Knight co-star, Christian Bale. Buckley and Bale are dynamite together, giving us the Bonnie & Clyde-esque monster romance I never knew I needed. As far as the cast goes, Annette Bening shockingly steals the movie. Not shocking in terms of the quality of her performance, she’s Annette freakin’ Bening, but rather for a character who only shows up at the beginning and end of the film, she steals every scene. Peter Sarsgaard and Penélope Cruz are also great, and it’s also good to see John Migaro in bigger movies. The only weak link in the cast is Jake Gyllenhaal, not because of his acting, but because he’s not in the movie nearly enough to leave a significant impression.
Image Source: Variety
The Bride! isn’t going to be everyone’s cup of tea. It’s not at all concerned with appealing to every demographic possible. Which is contradictory to the fact that it’s a big studio movie, but I digress. It won’t land for everyone, but I can see this movie being a cult favorite down the line. The kind of movie you and the girls throw on when you just wanna let loose and break shit on Halloween. Maggie Gyllenhaal’s twisted, mind-bending, spine-tingling, and rough-around-the-edges fairy tale is one for the ages, in my opinion. It’s the kind of unrestrained vision on a blockbuster canvas that’s only been afforded to directors like Christopher Nolan and Ryan Coogler in recent years. The Bride! isn’t afraid to be itself, and I love it for that. I typically dislike it when people defend movies that aren’t well-received with “But it took risks, so therefore it’s good!” I bemoaned and rejected every single take like this that attempted to defend Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis or Joker: Folie à Deux. This, however, is different.
I don’t think The Bride! is a great movie simply because Maggie Gyllenhaal took a massive risk with her filmmaking. I love it because she took big risks that resonated with me on a deep emotional level. It also helps to have great performances from Jessie Buckley, Christian Bale, and Annette Bening, beautiful cinematography courtesy of Laurence Sher, and a flawless musical score by Hildur Guðnadóttir. Guðnadóttir’s score is probably her best for a feature film, driving home the film’s grim and dreamy landscape. The Bride! may not result in a flood of women directors being afforded the same opportunities in the film space, but at the very least, it can pride itself on being unlike anything in theaters right now, if ever. If anything, if The Bride! gives us more movies directed by Maggie Gyllenhaal, that’s an absolute win. Do I wanna live in a world where Maggie Gyllenhaal doesn’t keep directing bangers? I would prefer not to.
Rating: 8.5/10
The Bride! is now playing in theaters. Rated R
CultureSlate: Made by humans, for humans.
Please consider supporting our AI-free content via our Patreon page.
READ NEXT:
Latest News
Featured
