Why You Should Definitely Catch Up on The Bride!, Streaming on HBO Max
© Warner Bros.
You may already know this, but Maggie Gyllenhaal’s The Bride! was largely panned by critics when it was released in theaters a few months ago. Now that the film has arrived on the HBO Max streaming platform, it’s time to give it the reevaluation it deserves…
Set in 1930s Chicago, The Bride! reimagines the classic Frankenstein myth through a punk, comedy-horror, and meta-cinematic lens, demonstrating great inventiveness and even greater eclecticism.
The story follows the Monster—a lonely, sad, and very sweet man (masterfully portrayed by Christian Bale)—who one day turns to Dr. Euphronius for help in creating a companion: the two manage to bring back to life a young woman who had been brutally murdered a few days earlier, and who is simply renamed “The Bride” (played by the magnificent Jessie Buckley). However, the woman immediately displays a strong and unexpected independence, and her rebirth will quickly spark an overwhelming and extremely violent love story that will also attract the attention of the local police and the interest of a radical social movement.
What to Expect from The Bride!
The misfortune of The Bride!, which was a resounding box office flop—grossing just $24 million worldwide on a production budget of $90 million—was that it was released after Poor Creatures! by Yorgos Lanthimos and Emma Stone (with which it shares more than just the exclamation point) and, above all, after Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein. Add to that the fact that Warner Bros. itself hadn’t quite figured out how to market the misunderstood masterpiece that is Joker: Folie à Deux—of which The Bride! seems to be a direct descendant for countless reasons that will become immediately clear as you watch—and there you have the explanation for why audiences completely shunned Maggie Gyllenhaal’s directorial debut.
However, in her second feature film following the excellent The Dark Daughter (2021), the actress-turned-director demonstrates the courage to take risks that is lacking in today’s Hollywood—and, above all, a visual talent and a knack for references that’s nothing to sneeze at: if you’ve always dreamed of seeing Frankenstein’s Monster and the Bride in a Bonnie and Clyde-style version (yes, Arthur Penn’s Bonnie and Clyde is another source of inspiration for The Bride!), then this is the film for you… provided you can accept its style, which constantly hovers between the serious and the playful
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