WARNING: The following contains major spoilers for The Bride!
Who is the Bride of Frankenstein? When we think about this curious figure, it’s likely Elsa Lanchester‘s white-streaked shock of gravity-defying hair and dark lips curled around a feral hiss that we picture. Made famous by James Whale‘s 1935 masterpiece Bride of Frankenstein, she’s come to symbolize monstrous and untamed femininity.
But literature fans know that the Bride is merely a concept in Mary Shelley‘s original text. Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus sees the titular mad scientist prematurely abandon his second reanimation project to prevent her from reproducing with the Monster (Boris Karloff). Released 84 years after her death, we’ll never know how the author would feel about Lanchester’s Bride or what kind of sequel she would have written. Maggie Gyllenhaal’s punk fantasy The Bride! seeks to answer these questions while asking who the iconic character would choose to be.
With quotation marks suggesting interpretation, Gyllenhaal’s film is nowhere near a faithful adaptation of Shelley’s original text. Messy, raw, and ferocious, it’s a feminist saga bringing long-awaited autonomy to one of horror’s most mystifying figures. As in Whale’s legendary sequel, the film begins with Shelley (Jessie Buckley) herself. In inky shades of black and white, she laments not being able to write the Bride’s story while she was alive and insists on doing so now. The cantankerous author blames the brain tumor that would kill her in 1851 for this limitation, but we assume patriarchal restrictions also played a part.
(L to r) Annette Bening as Dr. Euphronious and Jeannie Berlin as Greta in Warner Bros. Pictures THE BRIDE! A Warner Bros. Pictures release.
Shelley originally published Frankenstein anonymously in 1818, wary of the story’s unsavory nature. It was only when the novel reached ubiquity five years later that she was able to put her name to the text. Gyllenhaal’s gender-swapped mad scientist, Dr. Euphronious (Annette Bening), hints at a similar struggle, noting it’s just easier to publish her own scientific work under C instead of Cornelia.
But whatever the reason, Shelley chooses 1930s-era Chicago to kickstart part two of her electrifying tale. Following the suffragette movement of the early 20th century and the 1931 release of Whale’s Frankenstein, perhaps she feels the world is finally ready for an angry woman. Gyllenhaal’s film comments on Whale’s plot, fleshing out the subtext of its archetypal structure while allowing the Bride to speak for herself. Lanchester’s iconic character only appears for a single scene when she’s resurrected from the dead, then approached by Frankenstein’s hopeful Monster. But a happy wedding is not to be. Only moments old, the frightened woman recoils from the man to whom she’s been promised, reflecting the horror of his request. Devastated, the Monster pulls a lever that destroys the lab while he and his betrothed are still inside.
We meet Ida (Buckley) in a different setting, but a similar state of objectification. Ensconced by men in a crowded restaurant, she performs alluring sexuality, but we recognize a frightening power dynamic. Ida is dating Clyde (John Magaro), the henchman of a dangerous mob boss named Lupino (Zlatko Buric) — hats off to Gyllenhaal’s sly nod to pioneering director Ida Lupino. Perhaps sensing this perilous situation, Shelley pushes her way into Ida’s head and unleashes a torrent of Victorian rage. Speaking as Shelley, Ida crawls onto the table and begins screaming accusations at Lupino while warning the women to guard their words. We will later learn that the gangster not only has a history of sexual abuse, but he also collects the tongues of those who report his crimes.
Jessie Buckley as The Bride in Warner Bros. Pictures “THE BRIDE!” a Warner Bros. Pictures release.
Clyde hustles Ida out of the restaurant and offers a moment of concern before reluctantly pushing her down the stairs. As she crashes violently to the ground, Shelley warns us of the upcoming sequel, reframing Ida’s end as the Bride’s beginning.
With the story’s star dead in a pauper’s grave, another strange figure enters the scene. Frankenstein’s Monster, or Frank (Christian Bale), has survived his long-dead creator and adjusted to life in the modern world. He idolizes film star Ronnie Reed (Jake Gyllenhaal) and uses his suave demeanor as a model for masculinity. But the rom-com actor has drawn attention to the deficit in Frank’s lonely life. After watching his hero woo beautiful women, Frank longs for a relationship of his own. He approaches the visionary Dr. Euphronious and asks her to create a female mate. Assuming Frank is just looking for sex, the doctor suggests they simply find a professional, but Frank insists he’s more interested in companionship. What’s more, we see that the horrific state of his mangled body would likely repel any living woman.
This scene proves the benefit of Gyllenhaal’s gender-swapped scientist. Dr. Euphronious balks at the idea of bringing a female body back to life, compared to Whale’s sinister Dr. Pretorius (Ernest Thesiger), whose assistant murders a woman to create the lab’s “raw materials.” While she will eventually agree in the name of scientific advancement, Dr. Euphronious adamantly refuses to stitch together a bunch of random body parts. Frank suggests that his own creator was trying to sculpt a work of art, but she laughs away this tedious task.
They will find a dead woman whose body is mostly intact and simply bring her back to life. Many authors, myself included, have mused on this difference in corpse construction, noting the Bride’s less scarred appearance as an example of gender-based beauty standards. But Gyllenhaal reframes this dichotomy by positioning it as strange that the Monster is composed of various bodies and not that the Bride is mostly unmarked.
In fact, Gyllenhaal’s Bride is the perfect blend of hideous beauty. Still wearing the orange dress and red boots she was murdered in, Ida is dug out of her pauper’s grave and brought to Dr. Euphronious’ lab. Resurrected by a black serum and a system of light-based electrical currents, she arises, dishevelled by mostly the same. Save for her platinum bedhead and broken leg, which Dr. Euphronious stabilizes with a brace, the only sign of her reanimation is a network of inky black stains criss-crossing her body. The doctor believes these were caused by the serum, but given their resemblance to Shelley’s own shadowy appearance, they feel like remnants of graveyard dirt. Without the creature’s stitchwork and scars, these stains mark the Bride as an undead creature while symbolizing her vitriolic rage.
In addition to Clyde’s murderous betrayal, we learn that Ida tried to report Lupino and was seduced by the detective assigned to the case. Not only did he do nothing to stop the wealthy criminal, but he also contributed to her victimization. Unfortunately, predatory men will follow the Bride in her second life. At an underground party, she dances with untamed emotion, unleashing her energy as the music flows through her. But her feral joy attracts a pair of would-be rapists who may be connected to Lupino. Or perhaps they are simply incensed by a woman claiming agency over her own body and seek to diminish her through sexual assault. Later, a policeman will repeat this violence, attempting to rape the Bride during a traffic stop. Both times, Frank steps in to kill these men, but the Bride reacts with similar rage. She pounces on the injured officer and rips out his tongue with her teeth.
(L to r) Christian Bale as Frank and Jessie Buckley as The Bride in Warner Bros. Pictures THE BRIDE! A Warner Bros. Pictures release.
But it’s not just her actions — and an undead bodyguard — that make the Bride dangerous to men. While holding a society party hostage, Ida circles the room, overflowing with the stories of abused and battered women who whisper to Shelley from beyond the veil. No longer constrained by the fear of death, the rejuvenated women refuse to shield predatory men. The author’s habit of quoting Bartleby, the Scrivener, Herman Melville’s story of passive resistance, becomes a mantra of empowerment. Whether refusing invasive medical tests or rejecting an act of sexual violence, the Bride’s repeated “I would prefer not to” signals a reclamation of agency.
This empowerment proves to be contagious. When she and Frank make headlines, women begin painting their faces to mimic her ink-stained cheek. What’s more, they begin similarly challenging their own abusers, turning the Bride’s resistance into a feminist revolution. “I would prefer not to” feels like welcome empowerment when we consider Whale’s original version of the character who does not speak in her single scene. Rather than a concept of humanity created to complement a man, she has reclaimed her bodily autonomy and taught other women to do the same.
Though the Bride does eventually fall in love with Frank, their relationship is based on mutual consent. She’s touched by his wedding proposal, which mimics a scene from one of Reed’s films, but insists she’s not the marrying type. Throughout the story, Shelley has been urging her unformed character to find her name while allowing space for exploration. Now, she counters Frank’s well-meaning “Bride of Frankenstein” to declare she will just be called the Bride. Since the dawn of Western society, women have been expected to take their husband’s name, implying subservience along with romantic devotion. By streamlining her own moniker, the Bride refuses to be defined by anyone else. She will not become a variation of any man’s name or be folded into his identity.
She is the synthesis of Shelley and Ida, two women who have found their power in the death of their roles as female companions.
Though she has become a cultural representation of horrific beauty, Lanchester’s original Bride is a tragic figure. Not only is a young woman’s life stolen for Dr. Petorius’ experiment, but the original Bride is created for an eternity of partnership with a stranger. Now 90 years later, she not only has a voice, but a choice in who she wants to be. The Bride! is a powerful reclamation for a character deprived of humanity.
By allowing the woman to tell her own story, the Bride becomes a feminist avenger, monstrous only to predatory men. We watch her shake off a lifetime of patriarchal oppression to build an authentic identity and realize that we, too, can follow her path.