Fasten your seatbelts and prepare for a thrill ride with The Bride!

Here comes The Bride! and she's walking down the aisle in theaters this spring. Her tall tale is set in 1930s Chicago and follows a corpse bride navigating her afterlife in a man's world.

The creature has several name changes, but when alive was called Ida, which could be a reference to the 1929 painting titled Into the World There Came a Soul Called Ida by Chicago artist Ivan Rogers or possibly lesbian author Gertrude Stein's novel Ida. In Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein, the monster had no name and the author is written as a character in The Bride! similar to the 1935 movie Bride of Frankenstein.

Later in the storyline, Frank is the Clyde to her Bonnie/Penelope, who are on the run from the law. A revolution is sparked from these two cops and robbers, while believability is thrown out the window with Penelope's expert driving skills. How a dead person navigates an automobile so steadily and easily, we will never know. If someone is looking for factual realism in film, then they are attending the wrong wedding.

Walking in the gothic footsteps of the recently released “Wuthering Heights,” The Bride! is not faithful to the source material, but is a reimagining with a fresh writer's take. Both films piece together a patchwork of stories and inspirations to create something new.

Not only did Maggie Gyllenhaal direct The Bride!, but she wrote the screenplay and produced the project as well. For her sophomore effort, she pulls from a wide range of cinematic resources. Half of the fun is figuring out what Gyllenhaal is referencing and there is a long list to look for; some examples are 1985's The Bride with Jennifer Beals as Eva and Mel Brook's Young Frankenstein, among many others. The more movie trivia knowledge one has, the better they will enjoy this undertaking.

It is told from a strong female perspective and is rarely subtle, thanks to an in-your-face, punk style. Jessie Buckley is an important piece of the puzzle and she showcases a wide variety of character voices for her bleached blonde, unhinged character.

During a conference call on opening week, Jessie stated that she filmed The Bride before Hamnet and only had two weeks off to recover between the two. This shows the incredible range of talent Buckley possesses and explains why she's taking home so many trophies during awards season.

Here comes the groom and Frankenstein's Monster is played by her fellow Golden Globe winner Christian Bale.

Maggie has rounded up a wild team of players to convey her script and vision, including her brother Jake Gyllenhaal, who provides musical moves as Ronnie Reed. Additional atmospheric music can be found during a major queer dance scene with Fever Ray from the Swedis band The Knife.

Annette Bening chews up the scenery and camps it up as Dr. Euphronious. Knowing that she would have some ridiculous technical jargon to spew, Bening chose a casual approach.

Penelope Cruz is miscast as Myrna Mallow and struggles with pronouncing her own name. Cruz is so unbelievable as a detective that she has to explain who she is in one scene and all the while, Peter Sarsgaard coasts through being Detective Jake Wiles.

This duo's scenes slow down an overly long running time in this film. Bening was almost forgotten until much later and deserved more screen time as a mad scientist.

Jeannie Berlin as Greta steals her minuscule scenes and her looks resemble actress Angelica Huston thanks to hair and makeup.

Some of the violence was cut by Maggie from the original copy after negative test screenings, which screams for a director's cut in the future.

The Bride! makes the perfect mate for those who enjoyed Yorgos Lanthimos' Poor Things, which also explored the mistreatment of women through an unpredictable, volatile and visceral protagonist.

Whether audiences gravitate towards this daring circus act remains to be seen, but Maggie may have a cult classic on her hands one day.

Kiss The Bride! as she arrives in North American theaters on March 6, 2026.