Unreview Rules:

• I have to like it,
• I have to buy it,
• I do my best to use E-Prime (I can’t use any conjugation of the verb “to be”).

A re-telling of the Bride of Frankenstein via Bonnie and Clyde with a side of surreal danger covered in a chocolate syrup made from by the very angry ghost of Mary Shelley.

When people ask me “What is it about?” that’s what I tell them. And I’ve never seen anything like it.

I read Frankenstein when I was in 2nd grade. I loved Dracula at the time—not the book, but the Hammer Horror movies that came on late at night while I was living in St. Paul/Minneapolis. The Horror Incorpoprated late-night creature feature had them on along with a kaiju flick every Saturday night.

I had no idea then, but my little ADHD brain was completely obsessed with the Count and my folks got me a small paperback book that contained Dracula, Frankenstein and Doctor Jekyll and Mr Hyde. My 2nd grade self thought, “I might as well read these. They might be fun.”

I had no idea how much I would love Frankenstein. Dangerously coming close to eclipsing my obsession with the Count. The Doctor and his creep friend? They were okay. Not bad, but not anywhere close to the other two. And as I grew older, I watched and read every interpretation of Mary’s Monster. Some of them good, some of them awful, some of them “meh.”

When I saw the trailer for Maggie Gyllenhaal’s The Bride!, I felt a jolt of electricity go up my spine. I had seen Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein earlier, and while I liked it very much, I also felt slightly disappointed. Again, I really like del Toro’s take on the work—and I mean, I saw it twice—and it really felt like the Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein that I wanted… but it as I sat in the theater, I kept thinking, “This feels exactly like what del Toro would do with Frankenstein.” Fantastic, sensual, visually stunning… in other words… Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein. Nothing caught me off guard, nothing surprised me. I got exactly what was on the tin. Nothing more, nothing less.

And then I saw the trailer for this. And what… the ever-loving… @#$%???

I want to say so much about this movie, and so many already have, which upsets me. I’ve seen reviews that give away a spoiler that occurs at the very beginning of the film, and that little detail, which caught me completely off-guard, boosted this movie way above anything that’s been done with Frankenstein before. I’m not going to say it here, because I want you to enjoy the surprise that the movie gave me, but I will say this…

IF YOU WANT TO SEE A VISUAL LOVE LETTER TO A FAVORITE AUTHOR, FORGET THAT “WUTHERING HEIGHTS” STUFF AND SEE THIS MOVIE.

Seriously.

Stop whatever you are doing right now, grab whomever you need to grab, and see this movie. Not tomorrow. Not next week. NOW.

NOW.

I want to end this essay right there, but I can’t. I feel I’ve adequately complimented Maggie Gyllenhaal’s cinematic accomplishment with sufficient praise, but I know I have not. Also, I haven’t sung to the high Heavens about Jessie Buckley’s performance. I’m not going to talk about the rest of the cast—Christian Bale, Annette Benning, Penélope Cruz, Jake Gyllenhaal—because those folks pull their weight and more. They are accomplished actors with reputations, and they uphold those reputations with skill and poise. An amazing cast all around.

But let’s talk for a moment about Jessie Buckley. Just give this woman the Oscar right now. I mean, right-friggin’-now. The performance she gave impressed me, captivated me, seduced me, astonished me, befuddled me, aroused me, frightened me, threatened me, and still haunts me to this very second. It has everything to do with that spoiler I mentioned earlier that you could not pry from my lips, not with any torture devised by god or man, and the way she handles it makes any other performance by any other actor in 2025 simply vanish.

Ms. Buckley. Brava.

I know the only value the Oscar really has anymore is in contract negotiations, but you deserve it and every other award at the end of this year. All of them. Hell, I’ll invent one right now, just so you can have it.

My award— called, “The Circe”—goes to the woman who played The Mother@#$%in’ Bride!

You deserve it. And all the other things, too.

And as I close, let me say one last thing to Ms. Gyllenhaal. You have done something I never thought possible. You replaced Young Frankenstein as my favorite movie about Mary’s Monster.

And that, Ms. Gyllanhaal, deserves a Circe, too.