Maggie Gyllenhaal’s first film, The Lost Daughter, is an Oscar-nominated psychological drama based on Elena Ferrante’s novel of the same name. Her next feature, The Bride!, veers wildly into unknown territory. It’s messy, full of bizarre choices and certainly won’t be nominated at next year’s Academy Awards. The Bride! won’t work for everyone, but it resonated with me in a way I didn’t expect.
Gyllenhaal’s reimagining of the original Mary Shelley novel Frankenstein is set in mob-controlled 1930s Chicago. We follow Ida (Jessie Buckley) as she is possessed by the spirit of Mary Shelley (also played by Buckley) and is compelled to reveal what she knows about the mob boss Lupino’s crimes. When Ida speaks up about the murder and silencing of women at Lupino’s hands, she is killed by his men. Meanwhile, 100 years after his creation, Frankenstein’s monster arrives in Chicago. Played by Christian Bale, this version of the creature (called “Frank”) is most akin to the monster from James Whales’ iconic 1931 Frankenstein. Fittingly, Frank is obsessed with the movies of the 1930s and spends most of his time in the theater, watching the same musical over and over again, where other people’s eyes are glued to the screen and not to his appearance.
Frank comes to reanimation expert Dr. Euphronius (Annette Bening) with a request for a wife to cure his loneliness. The two dig up Ida and bring her back to life, but, without her memories, Ida becomes someone else entirely. Still occasionally possessed by the ghost of Shelley, the Bride fights to discover her own identity and to stand up for the women who have been silenced by Lupino, including her past self.
The Bride! is much deeper in its feminist themes than I was expecting. The Bride not only finds her own identity, but she becomes a voice for generations of women silenced by political violence. The possession by Mary Shelley is a jarring choice, but one that allows the Bride to hear the voices of other women who have been murdered by Lupino. Her rebirth gives her the power to speak up without fear of being killed — after all, she’s already dead.
Throughout the film, the Bride references Herman Melville’s Bartleby, the Scrivener, simply saying “I would prefer not to” whenever she is asked or told to do something she doesn’t want to. I kept thinking of Bonnie Honig’s book A Feminist Theory of Refusal, which uses Melville’s text to explore the action of removing oneself from the capitalist, patriarchal system as a revolutionary act. Here, the Bride’s death effectively removes her from all societal systems. Like Frank, she is seen as a monster. While Frank strives to become part of society, idolizing and aspiring to be like a movie star he sees on screen, the Bride uses her monstrous status to say what everyone else is too afraid to even think. Even when she learns her past name, the Bride elects to keep her chosen moniker. She is no longer Ida and no longer part of human society. She is a monster, and she uses her newfound power to start a revolution.
The Bride!’s exploration of feminism is one of its strongest aspects. It’s also supported by Jessie Buckley’s full-throttle performance as Mary Shelley, Ida and the Bride. Buckley is completely committed, which is necessary to keep the film’s momentum.
Reactions to The Bride! have been mixed, and while I understand why this wouldn’t work for everyone, I think many of the reviews have been overly dismissive of the film’s merits. The Bride! is an unabashedly feminist film, and Maggie Gyllenhaal is completely earnest in her filmmaking — two features that make the film even stronger to me but that have earned it a lot of cynical vitriol since its release. Even if The Bride! doesn’t always work, I will always prefer a creative film with something to say over anything that feels boring and overdone; my positive reviews of films like Megalopolis and Mickey 17 definitely prove that. The Bride! is anything but boring: It includes a musical number, a detective buddy-cop sideplot and beautiful visuals. The Bride! ultimately uses a classic aesthetic reminiscent of the movie musicals Frank loves so much to tell a story that is utterly modern.
‘Projections’ is a column focused on reviewing recent film releases.
Nicholas York is a member of the Class of 2027 in the College of Arts and Sciences. He is a staff writer for the Arts & Culture department and can be reached at nyork@cornellsun.com.
