I knew very little about The Bride going in, and I didn’t really expect much. I went in completely blind and so did my Dad, who didn’t really seem that excited about it. 

The Bride is a new movie that was written and directed by Maggie Gyllenhaal.  This is Maggie’s second film that she has written and directed with “The Lost Daughter” being her first.  This movie is a bit of a family affair in that her brother Jake does make a cameo and her husband, Peter Sarsgaard, plays a role as well. 

 The movie starts from the perspective of Mary Shelley, who was the author of Frankenstein. Mary Shelley possesses a woman named Ida, who is played by actress, Jessie Buckley. Ida ends up getting murdered but then is brought back to life to be the bride of Frankenstein. Frankenstein is played by actor Christian Bale. It’s a love story of sorts but also involves crime sprees and murders in the 1930s Chicago and New York. It was a bit bizarre and some of Jessie Buckley’s scenes were loud and over the top. It did drag on in spots and definitely could have been shorter than the 2 hour and 7-minute run time. 

My Dad joined me for the movie, and I asked him what he thought. He said that he “did not really think we needed another Bride of Frankenstein movie in our lifetime”. He did like that Maggie Gyllenhaal took a risk with this film, and he really wanted to support a movie that was written and directed by a woman, but unfortunately “it was a bit of a disappointment”. My Dad thought that Christian Bale and Jessie Buckley’s acting was good, and the make-up department did a very fine job as my Dad almost didn’t recognize Christian Bale at first. However, during the scenes when Mary Shelley seems to be taking over Ida’s body, that normally involved lots of screaming which became pretty annoying, pretty quickly. 

 Overall, I don’t know if I would recommend The Bride to anyone, unless you are a lover of challenging movies and Frankenstein.