“The movie is a deep, deep love story about a very imperfect connection. If we’re honest, that’s every love story,” writer-director Gyllenhaal says.

Maggie Gyllenhaal’s The Bride starts a punk revolution in ‘big and hot’ new trailer

"The movie is a deep, deep love story about a very imperfect connection. If we're honest, that's every love story," writer-director Gyllenhaal says.

By Sydney Bucksbaum

Sydney Bucksbaum

Sydney Bucksbaum is a staff writer at **. She has been working at EW since 2019 and is a published author. Her work has previously appeared in *TV Guide Magazine*, E! News/E! Online, *The Hollywood Reporter*, Mashable, Bustle, IGN, DCComics.com, Inverse, *The Daily Northwestern*, and more.

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January 15, 2026 12:02 p.m. ET

Jessie Buckley in 'The Bride'. Credit:

Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures

Here comes *The Bride. *And you'd better take note of her name.

Maggie Gyllenhaal's daring take on the *Bride of Frankenstein *makes it clear in a new trailer that this is — finally — the Bride's (Jessie Buckley) story.

"The Bride of Frankenstein," Frankenstein (Christian Bale) says, delighted, in the footage.

"No," she corrects him. "Just: the Bride."

Inspired by a tattoo she saw on a stranger's arm at a party, writer-director Gyllenhaal revamps Mary Shelley's classic monster story (and James Whale's 1935 film) set in 1930's Chicago. When a lonely Frankenstein asks mad scientist Dr. Euphronious (Annette Bening) to make him a companion, they dig up and reanimate a murdered young woman. But she's not what either of them expected.

As Frankenstein and his Bride fall in love, they tear through cities on a crime spree and ultimately ignite a cultural revolution.

"The dead have got something to say," the Bride declares in the trailer. "And I'm saying it."

In her second directorial effort, Gyllenhaal wanted to make a "punk" movie about "the monstrous aspects inside of every single one of us."

"I see it in myself, I see it in other people," Gyllenhaal says. "And I thought, 'What if we really got down to it and told the truth about that, but did it in a way that was big and hot?'"

Christian Bale and Jessie Buckley in 'The Bride'.

Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures

But most of all, she wanted to focus on the surprising romance between the Bride and Frankenstein.

"The movie is a deep, deep love story about a very imperfect connection," Gyllenhaal says. And I think that, if we're honest, that's every love story. Love is a very complicated thing, with ecstasy, pleasure, and also darkness and things that are broken."

*The Bride *also stars the director's brother, Jake Gyllenhaal, as movie star Ronnie Reed, with whom Frankenstein developed a parasocial relationship over the years by watching him on-screen. Due to Frank's disfigured physical appearance, he spends a lot of his time in dark theaters watching Ronnie's movie musicals — the only place he feels safe enough to be himself.

"Frankenstein's so lonely, and we hint at this a little bit in the trailer, he doesn't have anyone to talk to," the filmmaker says. "And his primary relationship, before we meet him, is with a movie star, because a movie star is someone you can imagine you have a relationship with and they don't know you at all... A lot of the movie is about the difference between fantasy, fantasy love, fantasy looks, fantasy sex, fantasy everything vs. reality, and what is the real pleasure of a love affair that's based in reality."

Maggie Gyllenhaal revives 'The Bride' of Frankenstein with a 'hot' twist: She's got 'a lot to say' (exclusive)

See Christian Bale and Jessie Buckley go full Frankenstein in first trailer for 'The Bride'

Once Frankenstein meets his Bride, his life completely changes — seemingly for the better. However, the trailer reveals the Bride has a much more traumatic story. The footage begins with her brutal death as she falls down a flight of stairs, and she begs for help before Dr. Euphronious brings her back to life.

"Can anybody help me? Please?" the Bride says. "I didn't want this. I didn't want any of this! Please help. Help!"

When she wakes up, she doesn't remember her life before death. Frankenstein tells her she had "an accident," and he wanted to bring her back so they could be together. The two bond over both being a "monster," and the trailer reveals flashes of their violent Bonnie and Clyde crime spree, with the authorities (played by Peter Sarsgaard and Penelope Cruz) hot on their tail.

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"The Bride comes back to life not knowing who she is and without any point of reference, without any compass to figure out who she is," Gyllenhaal says. "What is her agenda? Part of it is just to figure out who she is now... [She's] somebody who, in her life, was not able to get herself expressed before she dies, who had her mouth shut. She comes back as someone with a lot to say, and I think that there are a lot of people in the world that I imagine — myself included, which is part of why I made this — that can relate to that feeling."

Scared? Watch the new trailer above, and check out *The Bride* when it hits theaters on March 6.

- Sci-Fi & Fantasy Movies

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Source: “EW Sci-Fi”