The Bride! Was Never Going To Be A Box Office Smash – It Was Always Going To Be Your New Favorite Movie

Warner Bros.

Maggie Gyllenhaal's decidedly polarizing take on a monster icon, "The Bride!" did not perform well at the box office during its opening weekend. As our own Ryan Scott has identified, there are multiple reasons why "The Bride!" disappointed financially, but with all due respect to my colleague (who is infinitely more passionate and knowledgeable about box office totals than I will ever care to be), "The Bride!" also flopped because misogyny is alive and well. As we've seen time and again with films like "Heathers," "Jawbreaker," "Josie and the Pussycats," "Jennifer's Body," and "Lisa Frankenstein," movies about ungovernable women that embrace being The Most are never rewarded at the box office yet have the power to completely change the brain chemistry of those who resonate with them.

"The Bride!" isn't a retelling of "Bride of Frankenstein," but rather an intoxicating, maximalist epic possessed by the kitchen sink potential of what The Bride's story could have looked like in the last century. It is an exercise in excess, constantly straddling opposing worlds at any given moment (or, as /Film's Chris Evangelista wrote in his review, this "beautiful, messy monster movie is an unhinged delight"). It's a love letter to cinema, the righteous rage of women, stylish design for the sake of it, anachronistic music, validating loneliness, the communities found in dance club bathrooms, imperfect paths of self-discovery, and just about every major "Frankenstein" movie or TV show to permeate pop culture.

"The Bride!" deserves to be a massive success, but anyone who lives and breathes for "Oops! All Choices" cinema knows better than to determine a film's worth by how many tickets it sells on opening weekend. I loved "The Bride!" with my whole heart, and I know I'm not alone.

Warner Bros.

One of the film's most striking choices is to have Jessie Buckley's voice as The Bride continually splinter and reassemble itself. At times, she sounds almost cultivated, composed; at others, she sounds feral, and, occasionally, her voice turns eerily distant, as though it doesn't quite belong to her. Her voice is the result of multiple identities struggling to possess the same mouthpiece. The Bride may not have been assembled like Frank (Christian Bale), but she too, was constructed from incompatible pieces desperately attempting to settle into a single, recognizable self. And the seams are always on display, reminding viewers that she is still, in real time, struggling to become a finished person. Aren't we all?

Watching Buckley flip into a different voice mid-sentence, stammer with duplicative words attempting to find the right one, break into a rendition of Marlene Dietrich's "Falling in Love Again" in an inopportune moment, or experience a "brain attack" is ... quite honestly the closest thing many of us have ever seen to showcasing how our brains work.

Dismissing "The Bride!" as surface-level feminism reflects a level of privilege or distance from the realities the film addresses. Given Maggie Gyllenhaal's status as a prolific actor from a prominent Hollywood family who intimately understands the rot festering within the industry, choosing a story with this message for her big swing studio picture is the furthest thing from empty symbolism. Rather than recognizing that context, many reviews lean on tired, gendered dismissals that undercut the film's intent — and it's not exclusive to cis men. Thoughtful criticism will never be unwelcome, the problem of casual sexism is shaping much of the conversations around this movie, thereby denying us the opportunity to discuss how a film like this made us feel.

Warner Bros.

I can't remember the last day I had where I wasn't, at some point, completely cloaked in anger. I am angry that my tax dollars are being used to slaughter innocent people on the other side of the world. I am angry that all forms of bigotry are on the rise. I am angry that people still consider it "cringe" when a movie like "The Bride!" presents its feminist themes with the subtlety of a sledgehammer, seemingly forgetting that the abortion road trip movie has become our bleak reality. I'm angry that we don't live in a world where rapists are actually held accountable for their actions. I'm angry that so many women raised in the #NotLikeMostGirls era in the aughts haven't unlearned that garbage line of thinking. I am angry that the internet has fundamentally broken how we interact with each other. I am angry that Maggie Gyllenhaal admitted in an interview that the theatrical cut of "The Bride!" is a "pulled back" version of her original vision, thereby once again denying a woman the same opportunity to deliver an auteur-driven story still granted to men, even after they deliver a "flop."

And I am angry that if I scream about any of this at the top of my lungs, somehow that makes me the ill-behaved one.

Like "Lisa Frankenstein" and the countless, misunderstood cult hits that came before it, "The Bride!" was always going to be polarizing and become a barometer film that people use to make judgment calls about someone rather than actually engaging with the person to learn why they feel the way they do. As such, I know that I should explain myself further, but you know what?

I would prefer not to.