15 March 2026 Saw Maggie Gyllenhaal’s ‘The Bride’ at the cinema. Outstanding!

Jessie Buckley is formidable in the titular role. Her performance - range, voice, rage, fearlessness, fearfulness, dance, vulnerability, is truly mesmerising.

Mary Shelley’s ghost, limbo’d in some afterworld and channelled by the Bride, is a wonderful touch, given how Shelley’s authorship of ‘Frankenstein’ has been repeatedly questioned over the last two hundred years. (Read Fiona Sampson’s excellent book ‘In Search of Mary Shelley’). Shelley’s voice and the Bride’s voice oscillate quite brilliantly between wry humour and Dionysian abandon. Much like the entire film.

I love Gyllenhaal’s nod to Sylvia Plath in the film. (Gyllenhaal narrated Faber’s audiobook of The Bell Jar.)

I read the book before I see the film, and I see the film before I read the reviews. I loved 'The Lost Daughter' and wanted to see ‘The Bride’ because of Gyllenhaal and Buckley’s involvement.

In my opinion, many of the reviews in major outlets have misunderstood this film. The Bride is not a Bonnie and Clyde story; much of the violence arises from acts of self-defence when men attempt to shoot or rape the Bride. It seems to me that all Frankenstein and his Bride really want is a measure of peace and a way out of loneliness.

Nor, by the way, is the film a Romeo and Juliet tale. It is, however, unmistakably a love story, perhaps an exploration of acceptance in love, warts, scars and all, ‘til death do we meet.

Some reviewers insist that the film’s ‘feminist issues’, consent, bodily autonomy, and women’s roles in society, are overplayed or unsubtle. Yet Mary Shelley published Frankenstein in 1818, and her mother, Mary Wollstonecraft, had already argued for women’s equality in 'A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: with Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects' in 1792. Perhaps, because progress on women’s rights has been glacial, and in some countries is even contracting, the message still needs to be stated plainly.

In 'The Bride', women who speak up are silenced both literally and figuratively; a mafia thug collects their tongues. In her own life, Mary Shelley lived beyond society’s strictures; she supported women cast out for their unconventional choices. Through her writing, she interrogated social inequalities.

At the urging of Shelley’s ghost, Buckley’s character ultimately claims ownership of her story. The film insists upon the dire consequences for men who attempt to shape it, silence it, or present it as their own. Official Trailer

A joy to see Jessie Buckley receive an Oscar for her role in Hamnet tonight.