The Bride! - It Sucks!

TL;DR

Maggie Gyllenhaal's $90 million directorial debut is a incoherent feminist vanity project that wastes a stellar cast on a terrible script.

Key Points

• 1.The plot mashes together a ghost-possessed Mary Shelley, 1930s Chicago mob drama, Bonnie-and-Clyde romance, and feminist uprising into a structurally incoherent mess that caused mass audience walkouts.
• 2.Despite a cast including Christian Bale, Jake Gyllenhaal, Peter Sarsgaard, and Annette Bening, performances are universally poor — Bale reportedly screams nearly every line with no apparent direction.
• 3.The film's feminist messaging is described as embarrassingly dated, recycling 2017-era "female rage" themes at a time audiences have grown exhausted of them.
• 4.A direct comparison is made to another recent Mary Shelley adaptation — written and directed by a man — which was visually and emotionally acclaimed, making Gyllenhaal's failure more glaring.
• 5.The reviewer calls it a strong contender for worst film of 2026, comparing it to Star Trek: Section 31 and describing it as narcissistic, schizophrenic filmmaking that squanders every resource it had.