Tom’s Guide Verdict: ‘The Bride!’
- Rating: 4/5 stars
- Verdict: Maggie Gyllenhaal’s “The Bride!” reimagines Bride of Frankenstein as a gothic romance about identity, agency and love. Set in 1930s Chicago, it follows resurrected Ida and lonely Frank in a stylish tale. Visually striking and bold, it’s a passionate, if occasionally confusing, story overall.
- Where to watch: “The Bride!” premieres in theaters on March 5
In a world of hot monsters and messy love affairs, gothic romance films have truly reclaimed their stake in the hearts of modern viewers. From The Creature in Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein, to the brooding and yearning in Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights, gothic romances are back in full swing — and Maggie Gyllenhaal’s second directorial outing, ‘The Bride!’, is by no means an exception.
While the film itself has already received some rave reviews from critics, its dark sensibilities may not appeal to all. It is a magnificent feast for fans of Frankenstein, his monster, and the gothic romance genre, guaranteeing it will be a smash.
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Lucy Scotting
Lucy has been with Tom’s Guide since 2023, covering all things streaming, lifestyle and tech. Her top three films of 2026 (so far) are: “People We Meet on Vacation”, “Scream 7” and “Send Help”.
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As a reimagining of the 1935 Universal monster classic film, The Bride of Frankenstein, comes Gyllenhaal’s electrifying, exhilarating and passionately deranged love affair between the titular character (otherwise known as Ida, played by Jessie Buckley), and Frankenstein’s Monster (Christian Bale) — otherwise affectionately known as Frank throughout the 2-hour and 6-minute runtime.
This time, though, ‘The Bride!’ suffers from a different fate — and one I’m still not entirely sure of — being possessed by none other than the author of Frank’s tale, Mary Shelley. Rather than having a physical presence in the film, we see Mary in her greyscale post-mortem form, commandeering the unknowing Ida to help her write a sequel to her 1818 novel.
In a series of rather unfortunate events for Ida, Mary takes over during a night on the town in Chicago, 1931, contorting Ida’s body and causing uncontrollable outbursts. Ida’s possession takes place seemingly in the presence of the film’s subplot villain, a malicious tongue-cutting mob boss, Lupino (Zlatko Burić). And without too many spoilers here, there’s no denying what happens to Ida, as the sequence ends in her perfectly timed death.
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Wistful, romance movie-obsessed Frank, on the other hand, has been searching for companionship for almost a century, when he finds the answer to his longing in his favorite author and cadaverous reanimation enthusiast, Dr Euphronius (Annette Benning). Frank’s only request? To find him a mate, of course.
After much convincing, Dr Euphronius goes along with Frank’s plan to dig up a fresh corpse with hopes of electrifying it back to life. The corpse in question is the recently deceased Ida, freshly interred when she’s injected with a black-pigmented substance and struck by a street lamp-powered bolt of electricity.
What ensues is a cautious tale that dances between the lines of a non-consensual usurpation and certified self-agency, as Ida proposes many a question to Frank and Dr Euphronis, without receiving much of an answer that isn’t a tinge thwarted by deceit.
Verdict: Beautifully deranged, ‘The Bride!’ is fuelled by questions of agency
Many sweet moments in the film inspire me to think of Frank and Ida as a deranged power couple — including when Frank beats up a horde of not-so-friendly fellas grinding on his girl, and when Ida decides that ragtime actor Ronnie Reed (Jake Gyllenhaal) isn’t that nice of a guy after he berates his biggest fan in Frank — but the overarching implications of Ida’s lack of true self has sat with me in the few days post-screening.
It doesn’t dissuade from the true love that Frank and Ida have for each other by the end of the film, but in a sense, you can’t help but feel that Ida needs to reclaim her narrative. And she does, but just not in the way you’d expect. In a post-shootout rage-fuelled drive to see Dr Euphronis after Frank is critically injured, Ida claims her name as The Bride, but she is somewhat pushed to do so by Mary’s voice in her head. While I appreciated the inclusion of Mary’s eerie narration, the cutaway shots did detract from the film at times, making the premise a touch confusing.
Having said that, ‘The Bride!’ delivered a monstrously delicious romance from start to finish, and I can only liken our couple to Bonnie and Clyde: Revived. In this beautifully shot, neo-noir film, there was so much to like, and so much to yearn for.
As someone who doesn’t necessarily go after a monster-centric film, ‘The Bride!’ isn’t the kind of rip-your-guts-out creature feature. Sure, there are moments of disarray and kinda gross, gory violence, but the film as a whole is really centered around questions of agency, identity and feminism, with some decent drops of comedy and atmospheric musical numbers thrown in.
‘The Bride!’ opens in theaters on March 5, 2026.
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