Review: The Film, The Bride! (2025)...

Why do female empowerment films anger men so much? Or should I say, some men? Are they fearful? Worried about their tenuously dominant place in society? Or are they so wholly insecure in their masculinity that anyone resembling a strong female is a direct attack to their very being? Films like Suffragette (2015), Hidden Figures (2016), and of course the landmark feminist film, Thelma and Louise (1991), are all examples of films that exhibit women who rise above societal norms and restraints, women who trailblaze, women who revolt against male-dominated authority. 

It’s no wonder that films, and other media, like these make some—and I emphasize, some—men angry. 

But not me. 

For reasons of apology for my gender, I at first thought twice about reviewing The Bride! (2026). I thought better: the intelligent, progressive, 21st Century male within me seeks to share his opinion of this astounding, avant-garde, controversial film. 

This film is a revisioning of the 1935 horror film of the same name, which also takes its inspiration from Mary Shelley’s original novel, Frankenstein. Writer-Director Maggie Gyllenhaal (The Lost Daughter) takes this original idea and turns it on its head. Jessie Buckley (Hamnet), stars as Ida/The Bride/Mary Shelley. The spirit of the 19th Century pre-feminist author is angry at being silenced by death, and seeks relief through a 1930’s vociferous moll named Ida, whom she channels, and soon dies terribly after being pushed down a stairwell. By a man. Who did so to shut her up. 

Enter Frank (Christian Bale, Batman Begins), yes, that Frank—Frankenstein’s Monster—who has spent more than a century wandering the globe fighting the slings and arrows of loneliness. In Chicago, he seeks help from Dr. Euphronious (Annette Bening, American Beauty), a scientist whose research includes revitalization, read: resurrection. After much lobbying, they dig up the corpse of a freshly-dead woman, Ida. 

Then ensues a cross country road trip/crime spree à la Bonnie and Clyde (1967) and Natural Born Killers (1994), with a romance burgeoning, a body count building, and characters developing. Buckley plays the triple role with enough distinction, fire, and emotion that should really warrant another Oscar nod. Bale’s Frank is a sympathetic intellectual with enough emotional gravitas to anchor a sinking ship.

Gyllenhaal’s direction is unhinged, stylish, and at times flamboyant. Her script reflects these feelings—or does it represent them? Or vice versa? It is nearly flawless, if at times trippy, especially the dance hall sequence when every clubgoer instinctively mirrors the invisible dance moves of the monster couple. 

In terms of feminist commentary, there are two detectives that follow and attempt to apprehend the pair, not unlike Harvey Keitel’s (Reservoir Dogs) Detective Hal Slocumb in T&L, a sympathetic yet terribly shortsighted lawman. Detectives Jake Wiles (Peter Sarsgaard (Garden State), and Myrna Malloy (Penélope Cruz, Vanilla Sky) follow the monster couple with dogged determinism, yet Mallow’s role must always take a back seat to Jake’s; in public he calls her his secretary. Her character is another feminist trope: a woman—silenced, repressed—who ultimately gets her justice, her place in the room. 

But it was the ending of the film that truly worked me up. It worked as both a feminist statement and a symbol of hope. I will not give it away, but trust me, the conclusion of this film is worth the price of admission. 

See this film. Just see it.