{"id":504881,"date":"2026-03-05T08:26:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-05T08:26:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/504881\/"},"modified":"2026-03-05T08:26:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-05T08:26:08","slug":"jessie-buckley-in-maggie-gyllenhaal-horror","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/504881\/","title":{"rendered":"Jessie Buckley in Maggie Gyllenhaal Horror"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tIn James Whale\u2019s 1935 gothic horror masterpiece The Bride of Frankenstein, the title character played so indelibly by Elsa Lanchester screams and hisses but otherwise has no dialogue, and yet she has endured as an iconic movie-lore figure for almost a century. (That Marge Simpson electroshock skunk-stripe updo probably helped.) In Maggie Gyllenhaal<\/a>\u2019s aggressively punky reconsideration of the reanimated monster spouse, she becomes a laborious study guide for a Feminism 101 class, emphatically indicating points on sexual violence, consent, bodily autonomy and female power. She even yells \u201cMe too!\u201d late in the film.<\/p>\n

\n\tGyllenhaal\u2019s second feature as writer-director, following the more modestly scaled and psychologically layered The Lost Daughter<\/a>, is certainly a big swing and The Bride! deserves credit for its ambition and its stylish visuals. But I found myself being pushed away by the movie even before Jessie Buckley<\/a> bellows \u201cHere comes the motherfucking bride!\u201d at the end of an abrasively distancing prologue. I was already thinking wistfully of the sublime Madeline Kahn\u2019s monster marriage in Young Frankenstein.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tThe Bride!\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\tThe Bottom Line<\/p>\n

\tBest left at the altar.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tRelease date: Friday, March 6
Cast: Jessie Buckley, Christian Bale, Peter Sarsgaard, Annette Bening, Jake Gyllenhaal, Pen\u00e9lope Cruz, John Magaro, Matthew Maher, Jeannie Berlin, Zlatko Buri\u0107, Louis Cancelmi, Julianne Hough
Director-screenwriter: Maggie Gyllenhaal
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tRated R,
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t2 hours 6 minutes\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\tLike Lanchester before her, Buckley plays both the novelist Mary Shelley and her creation, who this time never stops talking. She goes by a handful of names but settles on \u201cThe Bride.\u201d Not \u201cof Frankenstein,\u201d in case you missed that point, but a personage in her own right, fully capable of expressing her own needs and defining her own boundaries, bolstered by tenacious agency where once she had none. Even when the title character is freshly reanimated and unable to recall who she was or how she died, her frequent refrain of \u201cI would prefer not to\u201d indicates clear ideas about what she does not want.<\/p>\n

\n\tCackling with maniacal glee from the inky black-and-white gloom of the afterlife, Mary seethes tiresomely about a hellish eternity in which she can\u2019t get a story out of her head \u2014 \u201cIs it a ghost story, a horror story, or most frightening of all, a love story?\u201d I sure couldn\u2019t tell you.<\/p>\n

\n\tCut to 1930s Chicago, where the woman eventually identified as Ida (Buckley) is among a crowd of revelers in a ritzy restaurant, her erratic behavior creating a spectacle, especially once she starts calling out the misdeeds of mob kingpin Lupino (Zlatko Buri\u0107) dining at the bar. (The character names I guess must be a nod from Gyllenhaal to studio system trailblazer Ida Lupino?)<\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s unclear at first what Ida\u2019s connection is with two men at the table, Clyde (John Magaro) and James (Matthew Maher), but when James starts trying to force-feed her an oyster \u2014 that sound you hear is clanging symbolism \u2014 she reacts like someone possessed. Which doesn\u2019t help her when the two men whisk her out onto a stairwell to silence her.<\/p>\n

\n\tGyllenhaal blurs the lines between Shelley and her creation as she declares she has a lot more to say, describing herself as disobedient, ungovernable. She leaves out unbearable. \u201cBe warned, the sequel is coming!\u201d she cries, like a portent. With the eeriness dialed up to maximum intensity, the author promises: \u201cIf Frankenstein frightened you, my next story will make you stand up and yell, \u2018Help!\u2019\u201d Except it doesn\u2019t. The implied terror is merely grating dialogue and a central performance so loud, fussy and mannered that it mutes any power to unsettle that the story might have had.<\/p>\n

\n\tFrank (Christian Bale<\/a>), as the stapled scalp monster is addressed here, turns up at the scientific institute and home of Dr. Cornelia Euphronious (Annette Bening<\/a>), who seems only mildly disconcerted to meet a man well over 100 years old. Having read her extensive writings on reinvigoration, Frank was not expecting a woman. She explains that she publishes as C. Euphronious: \u201cIt\u2019s simpler.\u201d That parallel to Shelley, who originally published Frankenstein anonymously at age 20, is one of many unsubtle dings about women being denied authorship, literary or otherwise.<\/p>\n

\n\tYearning for a companion, Frank implores the doc to make him a bride and end his loneliness. She refuses, but of course it\u2019s not long before they\u2019re digging up the fresh corpse of Ida, instantly identifiable by her kicky red boots. Frank says she\u2019s too beautiful, but Dr. Euphronious says, \u201cIt\u2019s now or never.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tOne of many times in which The Bride! is unfortunate in its timing so soon after Guillermo del Toro\u2019s ravishing Frankenstein<\/a> is the lab reanimation process, absent here of any mounting tension. The same applies to Bale\u2019s monster, who swoons and chuckles over elegant movie musicals featuring matinee idol Ronnie Reed (Jake Gyllenhaal<\/a>), but can\u2019t match the depth of feeling Jacob Elordi brought to the role for del Toro. (The strains of \u201cPuttin\u2019 on the Ritz\u201d as Frank imagines himself up on screen are another reason to wish you were watching Young Frankenstein.)<\/p>\n

\n\tDr. Euphronious has only previously brought small animals back from the dead, but the director shows little interest in that core transformation part of any Frankenstein story. The doctor simply pulls a lever, a voltage surge lights up the room, and hey presto there\u2019s the Bride, sitting up like a broken doll. Having taken possession of Ida, annoying Mary Shelley butts in at random intervals to whisper spooky things like, \u201cYes, darling, you\u2019re my monster.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThere\u2019s some mumbled business about a reaction to the \u201ccrystalloid solution\u201d causing the Bride to spit up black chemicals that stain her face and tongue. But the splatter mark merely serves to give her a distinctive look, the equivalent of the Joker\u2019s smile when she becomes an outlaw killer and inspires a wave of women to ink their faces and go on a copycat crime spree.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe evolution into a fugitive story happens after an interlude in a freaky underground nightclub where the Bride celebrates her newfound freedom in a sexually charged dance to the contemporary music of electronica duo Fever Ray. A couple of unfortunates in the alley outside make the mistake of brushing off Frank and getting rapey with the Bride (a recurring motif), which sets the undead couple\u2019s murderous flight from city to city in motion.<\/p>\n

\n\tDon\u2019t be mistaken, there\u2019s no lack of eventfulness in Gyllenhaal\u2019s plotting, which strings together genre homages like Christmas tree lights \u2014 monster movie, gangster thriller, outlaw escapade, musical romantic comedy, noir. The latter comes courtesy of Detective Jake Wiles (Peter Sarsgaard<\/a>) and his quick-thinking Girl Friday Myrna Malloy (Pen\u00e9lope Cruz<\/a>), who is really the brains of the operation but gets no credit because, duh, no one\u2019s ever heard of a \u201clady detective.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIf any of this were amusing or suspenseful or frightening or tender or soulful or something, it wouldn\u2019t be such a joyless slog. But the movie becomes like a shrill Bonnie and Clyde fever dream in which we have no reason to care about the fugitives so we just wait for them to be apprehended or plugged full of bullets \u2014 though possibly not terminated if the good doctor Cornelia and her devoted maid Greta (Jeannie Berlin, wasted) have anything to do with it.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Bride! looks impressive in IMAX, with sharp large-canvas visuals from DP Lawrence Sher, evocative production design from Karen Murphy and the usual boldly eye-catching costumes from the great Sandy Powell, with an occasional punkish twist on the 1930s. (The Bride\u2019s black and white fox fur shrug is a must-have accessory.) Hildur Gudnad\u00f3ttir\u2019s big string-energy score does the job, but the movie is more committed to its anachronistic use of contemporary music to shake up the attitude \u2014 at one point with a kind of flash mob coordinated dance routine.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe very capable ensemble, all of whom have done impressive work elsewhere, mostly gets smothered by the over-conceptualized, over-intellectualized approach to the material. There\u2019s a glimmer of pathos, nicely played by Bale, as Frank urges his new Bride to flee a crime scene rather than be killed again: \u201cI\u2019ve been through this before. It\u2019s terrible.\u201d But pretty much everything here feels like it\u2019s being done for effect rather than to convey real emotion.<\/p>\n

\n\tThat\u2019s the case especially with Buckley\u2019s shouty performance in the title role. What a strange quirk of timing that the Irish actress will likely be winning an Oscar for Hamnet<\/a> just as this wretched mess is unleashed upon the world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In James Whale\u2019s 1935 gothic horror masterpiece The Bride of Frankenstein, the title character played so indelibly by…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":504882,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[71826,64534,88,63107,76655,105582,203635,229524,105292],"class_list":{"0":"post-504881","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-annette-bening","9":"tag-christian-bale","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-jake-gyllenhaal","12":"tag-jessie-buckley","13":"tag-maggie-gyllenhaal","14":"tag-penu00e9lope-cruz","15":"tag-peter-sarsgaard","16":"tag-the-bride"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504881","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=504881"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504881\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/504882"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=504881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=504881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=504881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}