The Bride! is a new film from Maggie Gyllenhaal, who is an actress known for movies like The Dark Knight and Donnie Darko. She has now taken the role of director and absolutely kills it. What intrigued me about this movie was the trailers pushing this as a Bonnie and Clyde story with the Frankenstein monsters. However I feel like the marketing undersells this film as it’s more than that.

The Bride! takes place in the 1930’s where Frankenstein (The monster took his father’s name) is lonely and looking for love, so he teams up with a scientist to bring this girl back from the dead to be his bride, where they become a Bonnie and Clyde duo. Right off the bat, I understand the comparisons to Joker: Folie a Duex and to a point can agree, as this feels like what Todd Philips wanted to do with that movie but couldn’t get it quite right. However, I feel like there’s enough separating the two films to where if you didn’t like Joker, you could still really like this.

Starting with the positives, Jessie Buckley is a force to be reckoned with when it comes to acting recently. She plays both The Bride and Mary Shelley in this film and absolutely kills it. There’s moments in this movie when Mary Shelley speaks through The Bride where the character acts different and has a british accent and Jessie Buckley pulls it off so well, that you don’t even question it. Christian Bale also has a great performance as usual. I also love what they did with the makeup in this movie with Bale’s Frankenstein and The Bride. I love this movies Punk Rock tone and its grimey look and feel it has. This movie also has a weird sense of dark humor which I also really enjoyed.

With the mixed, This movie has an idea and message it goes for, and does really well, however it can get repetitive at some points and one of the characters in this movie, played by Penélope Cruz, who has a flat performance and is a big part of the messaging. Hopefully it’ll grow on me with a rewatch, however throughout the movie I wish her character was more dynamic and added a little more to the film.

Overall, I really enjoyed this movie and would love to see more from Maggie Gyllenhaal in the future. I would give this movie a 4.5/5 as I was entertained throughout and love stories like this. I would recommend watching it but if you know that this movie isn’t for everyone or if you know your tastes well enough to say  “Yes I would love this.”