The Bride tells us that Mary Shelley wrote Frankstein in 1818, which somehow must explain why Jessie Buckley (Hamnet) – mostly in the titular role – occasionally appears as Shelley, in some arty-farty shots that have led to no-one understanding the direction for Maggie Gyllenhaal‘s direction, and thus, the $90m (plus promotion costs) has led to its limited appeal, and thus, a box-office bomb.
Hence, Warner Bros are mirroring Universal’s Dark Monsters Universe, which began AND ended in 2017, with Tom Cruise’s godawful The Mummy.
But, let’s see what there is to see….
Set in 1936, as Ida, we first see her eating some posh oysters before puking over the President of Boravia, leading to her becoming brown bread in quite a spectacular style.
Meanwhile Frankenstein (Christian Bale – The Boy and the Heron) – better known as just ‘Frank’ – goes to Dr. Euphronious (Annette Bening – Film Stars Don’t Die In Liverpool), stating he wants her to revive a dead woman who’ll be his wife – as you do, somehow comes across Jessie’s body, and job’s a good’un… except that once she’s been brought to life and is made aware of her new situation, she has no interest in marrying him.
Still, there’s time for a jaunt to the cinema, eiter for an old 4:3 film in 3D – where they somehow get seats in a surprisingly busy auditorium, and while the name of the film isn’t given, I discovered afterwards that the only one possible is 1935’s L’Arrivée d’un train en gare de La Ciotat (aka Train Pulling into a Station), since 1936’s Beggar’s Wedding (aka Nozze vagabonde) never had any public screenings.
However, the train one only has a running time of 50 seconds, so you might actually have to ensure everyone’s seated before you run the movie. Ooh, this is most interesting than the film that I had actually come to see!
Another aspect that’s more interesting than The Bride!‘s content is in terms of which version to watch. There’s a straight 2.39:1 widescreen version, and two IMAX versions, one with 72 minutes of content showing in 1.90:1, and a version with around 10 minutes of that time in 1.43:1. However… like Joker 2, it appears they mostly just crop the sides of the 2.39:1 movie to get the extra height.
Well, for some of the scenes, based on a 1.43:1 trailer and pictures I saw of all formats compared (one included), there’s a slight bit of extra height, but nothing to get excited about.
In fact, I could see a number of brief, weird monochrome 1.43:1-shaped scenes (where Buckley plays Mary Shelley) during the film, were included with black space either side, so they could be shown without cropping. The same also was the case for Maggie putting in her brother, Jake Gyllenhaal (Nightcrawler), as Fred Astaire-style movie star Ronnie Reed, where the film clips were either presented in approx 4:3 or 1.85:1. Sometimes, these had black space at the sides, and sometimes cinema curtains.
So, because of Maggie’s endless fucking about with aspect ratios, I didn’t fancy throwing a fiver at the IMAX screen for potentially cropped images, and went straight for the 2.39:1 version. You still get all the pertinent information onscreen.
As for whether The Bride! is actually worth watching… No, with the plot and style not knowing what it wants to be, it just turns into a ridiculous mess. And never mind the fact of how the pair go about town, yet no-one comments on how much they stink, given their rotting flesh!
Oh, and given their antics, they also have cops Myrna Malloy (Penélope Cruz – Ferrari) and Jake Wiles (Peter Sarsgaard – September 5) running around after them, for all the difference this makes… Well, Maggie wanted to give hubby Peter a job.
NOTE: There is both a mid- and post-credits scene, as per the video below.
The Bride! is in cinemas now, and is available to pre-order on 4K Blu-ray, Blu-ray and DVD.
Detailed specs:
Cert: 
Running time: 127 minutes
Release date: March 6th 2026
Studio: Warner Bros
Aspect Ratio: 2.39:1; 1.43:1 (approx 10 mins, partially cropped), 1.90:1 (72 mins, partially cropped) (X-OCN XT (8.6K))
Cinema: Odeon Trafford Centre
Rating: 2/10
Director: Maggie Gyllenhaal
Producers: Maggie Gyllenhaal, Osnat Handelsman Keren, Talia Kleinhendler, Emma Tillinger Koskoff
Screenplay: Maggie Gyllenhaal
Music: Hildur Guðnadóttir
Cast:
Ida / The Bride / Mary Shelley: Jessie Buckley
Frank: Christian Bale
Dr. Euphronious: Annette Bening
Myrna Malloy: Penélope Cruz
Det Jake Wiles: Peter Sarsgaard
Ronnie Reed: Jake Gyllenhaal
Clyde: John Magaro
James: Matthew Maher
Greta: Jeannie Berlin
Lupino: Zlatko Buric
Officer Goodman: Louis Cancelmi
Iris: Julianne Hough
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.