The Bride!

The Bride Review: Equal parts pretentious and schlocky

Brighton Nelson

06 Mar 2026 — 6 min read

I wasn't too sold by the trailers of The Bride! I've never really been a huge fan of the Universal Monsters because, frankly, we get at least one new adaptation of them every year, and I just don't really care. However, as a reviewer, I try to watch every movie I can, and I totally realize that my preconceived notions are deconstructed like every other Tuesday, so I went to check this one out anyway. Especially because it seemed like a love-hate relationship film, which is also true of some of my favorite films of all time. So, I watched the film anyway for today's Reel Ranker review.

The posters were definitely the coolest thing about this movie.

To start off the review, I've just got to say: this is going to be a polarizing film. To quote my favorite movie reviewer, Cody Leach, some will find this "a brilliant masterpiece in certain respects", yet some will call it "an absolute ridiculous, chaotic mess". This is truly one of those films I find far more interesting to discuss than to watch.

While this film did boast some great elements, I unfortunately fell into the second camp that Cody so eloquently described. Among the film's positives, it had a tangible style. From the film's psychedelic and goth style to its makeup design (the permanent black stain and punk style were interesting) to its cutting and editing, it was visually very well done. Adding to the film's style was the star of the show, Jessie Buckley, whose performance perfectly portrays the psychotic nature of two minds melded together. The performance is dramatic, even beyond what you'd see in the most dramatic of theatre, but it leads The Bride! herself to be a zany, memorable character that I really enjoyed watching, even if she'd be overbearing and off-putting to some. Jessie Buckley's performance here is completely different than her performance in Hamnet, but perhaps even better. Christian Bale's subdued, reflective, protective version of Frankenstein juxtaposes well with her craziness in the beginning, and his eventual descent into more madness plays out well. I also love that he's a cinephile for some reason. A nice touch indeed.

Actually, no, the costume designers and makeup designers might've been cooler than the graphic designers. A tough competition, to be sure.

However, while the directing, style, and performances are all spot-on, the film's narrative is a rather incoherent mess, especially given that, in the end, not all that much really happens. From Mary Shelley randomly possessing The Bride's body sometimes for no discernible reason, to the eventual zeitgeist paradigm shift and uproar that The Bride! seems to inspire for no explained reason; it was unequivocally odd. While it feels like Gyllenhaal wants the film to feel schizophrenic, and that can be done well, the film rushed through important parts so quickly and dragged out the boring ones that I felt equally lost and bored throughout.

The film's thrown-in themes of female empowerment are quite baffling: it depicts numerous men as vile, yet it doesn't show enough of The Bride's goodness, selflessness, or bada**ery to give me any sense that she'd feel empowering as a foil to them. I feel like if I were a woman at the time, I'd like her style and commitment to fighting back against a patriarchal society, yet be completely puzzled by her motives and spontaneous nature to the point I'd instantly turn my eyes back towards actually empowering figures of the time such as Eleanor Roosevelt, a true female leader that was practically president, or my favorite legendary "Hatchet Granny", Carrie Nation, a women who fought for something real instead of perambulating through life on a whim and causing a ruckus for the sake of the inexplicable.

Girl, you ain't no Carrie Nation, nor will you ever be.

Given how the film plays out, it feels like it's trying to be both a B-movie patriarchal thriller and a pretentious Oscar-bait film. Everyone fishing wants to sexually assault The Bride? Oh, the film is going for a schlocky, punk revenge thriller angle... oh, but the next scene, we're sitting in a theater watching a 30s film that feels like it's there to only be a pretentious vehicle for her brother since there's no real reason Frankenstein seems to be a film buff other than that... which is sad, because, if anything about that subplot made sense, it'd easily be my favorite part of the film. Honestly, in general, there's not a lot of time given to Bale's Frankenstein, which is odd, judging that this "bride" term hooks her to her marital relationship with him... it feels like she and the creators of the film focused so much on her strong independent nature without giving the audience any proof that she loves Frank enough to be her bride. And, yes, this film does call him Frankenstein or Frank. Not my error, it's literally that way with the film.

See how that last paragraph was all over the place and pretending it was making sense and also trying to be pretentiously over the top? Voilà, if you didn't like that paragraph, this film might not be for you. Because that's how this whole movie feels.

The Reel Ranker Verdict

Reel or Unreel? - Unreel
The Reel Ranker Score: 35%
Letter Score: D
Star Ranking: 2 out of 5

The Bride! may boast an alt-punk-goth, Bonny-and-Clyde, psychedelic style with great performances. Still, its lack of coherency and its tonally wild whiplash that feels equal parts pretentious and B-movie schlocky leaves the film as a black mark on my mind and my wallet—a mark not dissimilar to the one The Bride flaunts on her face throughout this far-too-long film.

Interested in checking out my reviews for some other thriller/romance type films? Check them out below!