It seems that the story of Frankenstein has had a bit of a resurgence of late. With Guillermo del Toro’s Oscar-nominated version currently available on Netflix, now we have The Bride! An imaginative version of the 1935 Universal horror, The Bride of Frankenstein. Only this time, we don’t have to wait till the end to meet the title character, this is definitely centred on the dead woman who becomes the Monster’s spouce, and in the hands of writer and director Maggie Gyllenhaal, it’s a wild ride where you never know where it’s heading and even if it’s not successful in its storytelling, it certainly is an interesting flawed movie.

Frankenstein’s monster heads to Chicago in the 1930s to find a doctor who can bring the dead back to life. He wants a bride, and so they turn to a murdered gangster’s moll named Ida. As she is brought back to life and dealing with a loss of memory, the pair become fugitives on the run from the police, while they try desperately to form a relationship.

Gyllenhaal’s second feature as a director is a very different fish from that of The Lost Daughter. This is a reinvention of a beloved story and one of cinema’s classics. How do you make it unique so that comparisons to the original are only in name? Firstly, you set it in a time of depression, violence and debauchery. Having the film set in the 1930s allows Gyllenhaal to create a canvas where the two main characters won’t seem too out-of-place in a world where alleyways are full of the depraved.

Capturing the spirit of the period with a mix of costumes, attitude and jazz works well, and it somehow evokes another famous gangster double act, Bonnie and Clyde. Frankenstein and Ida are on the run from the police in the same way that the Monster was being chased down by the locals in the original 1933 film. It also creates a subplot involving a top mob boss who ordered Ida’s death, and her slowly remembering, which leads to revenge.

Where the film enters the realm of the weird is in Mary Shelley as a lost soul, who becomes almost a second part of Ida, with her unwittingly interrupting the moll with outbursts of extreme language, as if the writer is controlling her. While it’s fascinating to watch, it doesn’t quite work, as it is never fully explained why and how this is happening, and some of the comments are so preposterous that it becomes almost like watching someone with Tourette’s.

There is plenty here to keep you on your toes, and some of the set pieces are impressive, if a little bizarre. The film isn’t wholly successful, but that’s what makes it so interesting. It’s as if Gyllenhaal has been given the green light to do whatever she wants, and so she does, without any interference from the studio. As far as I’m concerned, that is very healthy.

It has plenty of nods to classic films, as well as a saucy wink towards Young Frankenstein, when the Monster does a dance routine to Puttin’ On The Ritz, while the ending is straight out of the 1967 Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway classic, Bonnie and Clyde.

The performances are also terrific from a cast who know what they are doing. Annette Bening is solid as the doctor who helps the monster, while Peter Sarsgaard (Maggie Gyllenhaal’s real-life husband) is grimy enough as the detective trying to track down the pair, and Penelope Cruz is the other and smarter detective. There’s a neat cameo from Gyllenhaal’s brother, Jake, as a musical movie star.

In the role of the Monster, Christian Bale is superb, capturing plenty of the rage but also some incredibly moving moments of pathos, as he lumbers around trying to get this new woman in his life to fall in love with him. Once again, however, it is Jessie Buckley who steals the show as The Bride, a woman with plenty of fire in her belly and having to cope with multiple personalities, which she does with aplomb. Is there anything she can’t do?

The Bride! is not a complete success, and it does suffer from moments of uncontrollability. Yet, with this and Wuthering Heights in cinemas at the moment, the reinvention of classic stories is rife, and this is far more impressive than the Emily Brontë revamp. Not perfect by a long shot, but definitely brave, and I would rather watch a film that tries than one that just goes along simpler lines.

4 out of 5

Director: Maggie Gyllenhaal

Starring: Jessie Buckley, Christian Bale, Annette Bening, Peter Sarsgaard, Penelope Cruz, Jake Gyllenhaal, John Magaro, Matthew Maher, Jeannie Berlin, Zlatko Burić, Julianne Hough

Written by: Maggie Gyllenhaal

Running Time: 126 mins

Cert: 15

Release date: 6th March 2026