Through her reimagined take on the iconic Frankenstein bride character, Maggie Gyllenhaal says the upcoming horror/sci-fi crime flick The Bride! cannot skirt past the issue of consent as a central thesis in the film.
“In the mythology of the Bride of Frankenstein, that’s the major issue,” she told Deadline at the London-held world premiere of the movie. “I can’t make a movie about the bride of Frankenstein without consent being really on the table because she fundamentally has no say in it. You could say, on some level, we don’t have much say in being born either, but we’re not born as grown women. And we’re not told that we were made for someone else to marry.”
She continued, “I understand Frankenstein’s ask; he’s this very lonely, vulnerable man who is literally at a life-and-death degree of loneliness, saying, ‘Please, help me find someone to be with,’ but what about her? I mean, what about her? And that’s what this movie takes on.”
Starring Jessie Buckley as the eponymous character, the Gothic romance tale written and directed by Gyllenhaal follows the Monster (Christian Bale) in 1930s Chicago, where a groundbreaking scientist (Annette Bening) brings back to life a murdered woman to serve as his companion. Peter Sarsgaard and Jake Gyllenhaal round out the cast.
The Bride! — which debuts in theaters March 6 — is inspired by the 1935 sequel Bride of Frankenstein, in itself a loose adaptation of a side-plot first introduced in Mary Shelley’s indelible 1818 work. In the original sci-fi novel, Victor Frankenstein is beseeched by his creation to create a companion, but after being plagued by visions of what this second attempt may bring (namely the breeding of additional monsters), the scientist destroys the companion before it is brought to life.