The Bride!

This film is based on the epistolary novel Frankenstein and the 1935 film Bride of Frankenstein.

After watching the trailer, my husband and I immediately knew it was going to be something special — and that we were 100% going to watch it. This film is obviously not a direct adaptation, it’s arthouse and definitely not for everyone, but it’s so good.

The cast alone deserves a mention: Jessie Buckley, Christian Bale, Annette Bening, Penélope Cruz, Peter Sarsgaard, Jake Gyllenhaal, Louis Cancelmi and others.

A special shout out to Buckley — she’s an incredible actress, and I have a feeling she’ll soon become one of my favourites. This role, I think, is one of her best and most memorable. If you haven’t had a chance to discover Jessie yet, I highly recommend Men (2022). She’s been really in the spotlight lately — Hamnet (2025), which I haven’t had a chance to check out yet, and Wicked Little Letters (2023), also highly recommend!

The makeup and performances, the visuals and music, the costumes and sets, the dancing and humour, and the idea itself — literally everything about this movie is wonderful. In places it feels more like a theatre production than a regular film, which is really cool and adds a lot to the atmosphere and experience.

Bale is also great, and his Frankenstein is exactly what I wanted from Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein — repulsive, poorly assembled from different people’s bodies, and harmless. Instead we got Elordi’s sexy TikTok version of the monster…

I liked how Frankie turns to a female scientist to bring his fiancée back to life, and that the bride’s past profession is prostitution — which perfectly reflects the parallels between her story and the monster’s: both have deformities, physical and social; both face fear and contempt from people; and both are lonely and isolated — he because of his appearance, she because of her profession.

And I love the fact that Maggie Gyllenhaal decided to give Frankenstein’s bride her own voice, so we can finally hear her. Huge gratitude to Maggie for that!