Pop Culture Happy Hour - The Bride! and What's Making Us Happy

Episode Date: March 6, 2026

The Bride! goes way beyond a simple tale of literature’s most famous reanimated corpses. Directed by Maggie Gyllenhaal and starring Jessie Buckley and Christian Bale, the film is a wild take on the bride of Frankenstein’s monster. It follows her origin story, her relationship with the big lug himself, and her pursuit of her own distinct identity. Follow Pop Culture Happy Hour on Letterboxd at letterboxd.com/nprpopcultureSee pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

The Bride goes way beyond a simple tale of literature's most famous reanimated corpses. Frankenstein's Monster, the Bride of Frankenstein's Monster, and Frankenstein author Mary Shelley, are all characters in the film. The Bride stars Jesse Buckley and Christian Bale, both of whom know a little something about committing themselves to juicy roles, and it was written and directed by Maggie Gillenhall. I'm Glenn Weldon. And I'm Stephen Thompson.

Joining us today on NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour is Barry Harrow. She's a senior editor for NPR's investigations team. Hey, Barry. Also here with us is filmmaker, pop culture critic, and IHeart radio producer, Joelle Monique. Hey, Joelle. Hi, Stephen. It is a pleasure to have you all here. So if I say the title of The Bride, excitedly, that's because it includes an exclamation point, kind of both literally and figuratively.

The film is a wild take on the bride of Frankenstein's monster, her origin story, her relationship with the big, Lug himself and her pursuit of her own distinct identity. The film stars Jesse Buckley as the bride and Christian Bale as the erudite monster. Her vibe is a little like the Joker and his is a little like zombie Tom Waits. He's seeking a bride as monsters so often do, so he enlists the scientist Dr. Euphronius, played by Annette Benning, to reanimate a corpse. But it's not simple for monsters attempting to enter into an arranged marriage in the 1930s. They have to get to know each other. They have to fend off an alternately hostile and indifferent world.

And they have to contend with not only her past, but also the police, the press, and at least two different types of mobs. It's a gory gothic horror romance with Jesse Buckley actually turning up in three roles, one as a young woman who dies, one as a corpse bride, and one as Frankenstein author Mary Shelley, whom we meet in a kind of purgatory. It's in theaters now. Joelle Monique, I'm going to start with you. What did you think of the bride? Stephen, I've been like racking my brain. I have to keep it tight. I love so much about this movie.

So I tried to pick three things. Okay, you have three incredible actors having so much fun and it is such an exquisite joy to watch each of them just like go all out. I was having a blast. Two, I really, really enjoy the fact that we can get such over the top. over feminist tropes in our horror. I think horror is a great place for feminist filmmaking. And this is not subtle. It's not trying to be. And in that way, it allows space for you to kind of like, I was telling you guys earlier, my audience was like whooping and hollering like it was a Marvel

movie, which is an exquisite experience at the movies. And three, I think this movie is doing a lot for Frankenstein lovers. And I love seeing Frankenstein on film. And they take a lot of opportunities to just celebrate the goofy, weird, fun, exquisite, like over-the-top performances of Frankenstein's path. And I was key-key with my friends as we were watching it. It was just such a joy to watch. I loved watching this movie. Awesome. How about you, Barry? I also was absolutely delighted by it. And I don't think I'm its core audience. I'm not a horror person. I kind of wasn't aware of the discourse about it before. I think there's been a lot written about it. And it's sort of maybe rocky path to where it is.

So I went in with no expectations, and I, as a movie lover, just a person who likes movies, likes to talk about movies, likes to, I was in heaven. The visuals, the references, you know, I came out of there just like wanting to turn Bonnie and Clyde back on, you know, like wanting to see all my fun things again. Just gorgeous. And I am just a huge Jesse Buckley fan. What she's doing with a really odd role. And which is over the top, as everyone has said, is so sort of tender.

There's so much pathos in her face in a way. It's sort of like there's like a hint of like a Claire Dainsey, Jennifer, Jason Lee. I really, really enjoyed it. And the things that I found imperfect about it, and I did find some things imperfect. Certainly did not warm me off of it. And we're actually kind of silly and fun. So, yeah, no, I'm a huge, unexpected fan. Awesome.

How about you, Glenn? I was saying to folks, before we started taping that this movie's a mess, but call me Marie Kondo, because I love mess. I spent most of this movie watching it like I was a judge on law and order, like over and over again, scene after scene. I'd hear myself thinking, I'll allow it, but you better be going somewhere with this counselor. And then five minutes later, I'll allow it, but you're on a short leash counselor. But then this movie doesn't so much go somewhere as it goes everywhere. And I put it on a short leash, and I kept breaking that. leash and bolting into traffic, and yet I kept allowing it.

There are so many Mulan Ruggie riffs in other movies. We mentioned Bonnie and Clyde. There's also King of Comedy in there, and there's a couple young Frankenstein riffs, one of them, which felt pretty cheap to me, but I went with it. I'll allow it. Divine. I don't think if this movie hangs together, I don't think hanging together in a conventional sense is really the aim.

I think the shagginess is the point. There are so many ideas at the screen. They're all kind of equally asserted that I came out of it thinking, well, I know the stuff that I liked that I wish there was more of, Jesse Buckley, channeling Mary Shelley. I didn't get enough of that. Wanted more of it. And I know the stuff I didn't like and wish there was less of. There's some business with Peter Sarsgaard that takes place entirely an exposition at the end of the

film. That could have it out easily. But then everybody's going to have a bespoke experience because you can have like, here's what I liked and here's what other people like. But who doesn't love a big swing? You know, who's a sucker for something that feels like it came from like a living, idiosyncratic, individual human mind and not a boardroom? guy. This is a studio film. You don't get this many vintage cars and backlots if you don't,

you know, have a studio. This is just kind of punctuation. And it doesn't connect in a tight callback Sid Field Robert McKee manuscript screenplay way. This film is shaggy and organic. I got to be careful here, but here's what I'm trying to say. I think this film is a feminist fable, obviously. It doesn't feel like its argument, its motivation is academic or intellectual. It feels a lot more raw and emotional and fun. I like this movie. Yeah, I came down roughly the same way, and I wasn't distracted by much watching this film. I was definitely locked into this movie. The few times I allowed a stray thought to enter my brain that wasn't trying to figure out what the hell was going on,

the thought that popped into my head was, Lady Gaga is going to watch this and be so jealous. Glenn, you're a Batman guy. Did you see, I mean, you were listing things that this film was referenced. But one that I kept coming back to was the story of the Joker and how much the Bride of Frankenstein in this film has kind of a Joker arc, right up to an including copycat crimes, up to an including, you know, the women of 1930s Chicago or whatever, like painting their faces and going on crime sprees. I found that sort of interesting. Like, I wasn't expecting a story about the bride of Frankenstein to so repeatedly conjure the Joker. But, man, this thing is, as you said, it is all over the map. And I do think, among other things, I really appreciated watching it kind of the way I did,

which was about a week after watching the Guillermo del Toro Frankenstein. And kind of getting to see these extremely audacious, kind of idiosyncratic visions of Frankenstein and the Frankenstein. myth kind of in strange conversation with each other. Yeah. That's funny. The Gaga that I saw at it was sort of the little monsters. Sure. The choreography is such as has so much reference to thriller.

Oh yeah. There's like a dance routine in its film. There is. There is so much choreography, just period, which felt like that was the bespoke experience for Barry Hardiman, as well as the Fred and Ginger references. But there were so many different modes of expressing itself, like in the movement, in the color, in the.

the speech, be it, you know, Mary Shelley's tone versus, you know, the bride's tone. You know, there were so many just different modes, which for me gave me a lot of stray thoughts, and that was part of the experience, you know, just like being bombarded with, hey, I remember trying to do that video. The film that I kept thinking back was Lisa Frankenstein, which was riffing on some of the same issues, but was also riffing on the teen romance stuff and felt a lot more kind of calculated. and I'm going to say cynical than this film did. I think this film is coming from a deeper kind of raw or emotional place. So even though you could, like this film is pastiche after pastiche after pastiche, this felt truer in a strange way than that film did.

And it kind of connected with me in a more pure, but still, I mean, I'm team banana pants. And I'm always going to be team banana pants. And so I don't think about things like, where'd they get torches in 1930s Times Square? Where'd they find torches? I didn't think about that. although now I'm thinking about it. No, no, no, don't think about it. It's the absurdism is what makes the movie so delicious.

You're just like, what? Why are we suddenly on a police car chase? Almost nothing makes sense. Like, beat to beat, you're just like, what is happening? But I think the emotional through line, and it's, can I also say, it's very funny to me all of the disparate movie selections, because I was thinking of poor things the whole time. It's like, oh, yeah.

I did think of poor things as well. Poor things accelerated. Like if what if instead of her starting off as like a child and sort of discovering the whole world and coming into her womanhood, she's understands that she's a woman in her own mind, but she's trying to understand it in connection to like the rest of the world. She's like, I know who I am. How do I fit in this space? And then on top of that, like they give Frankenstein a similar through line, but he's lived in the world for a long time. And he's trying to understand like who he wants to be in that world. Yes.

In the original film. she's mostly a visual figure that women gravitated to. They were like, this woman is so striking. She's so unique. There are hardly any women. Like at this time, if you're looking at, you know, these black and white, well, films, women are the girlfriends. And, you know, we can get to be the monsters.

To this day, we have a lot of monster-loving stories out right now in our romance genre. Monsterphalia. Make it academic. I appreciate you. Thank you. But oftentimes, it's like a monster-loving. a very human woman with a male monster figure. And I think there's being able to be inserted dynamically into this world.

And then Maggie does this other thing where she makes all of the main guy roles are into him. So Annette Benning plays the mad doctor. Dr. Euphronius. Penelope Cruz plays the detective who's trying to haunt down the bride and Frankenstein. Within that, you get to experience your favorite classical horror film in a way that keeps you, if you're a woman, at the center of it, I couldn't help to have so much fun. I was just like, I don't care that it's the mess. I don't care that it's weird.

I love Frankenstein. I've seen every iteration of Frankenstein on screen. I think there are like 200. There are so many. I've seen the ones in Spanish. I've seen the British ones. I've seen the American ones. There's probably some I'm missing.

But I feel like I'm intimately familiar with this character in all of his forms. And for Christian Bale to step inside this role and do something completely new and different and fun. And you can tell he's having such a good time. It's just a delight to watch. Please go see this at the movies. The IMAX of it all? Oh, my God.

Do we agree the Christian Bell is kind of riffing on Herman Munster? Yeah, I felt that. A little bit. Yeah. Absolutely. Can I just say one other thing in praise of this film, in comparison to the Guillermo Del Toro Vision that is currently nominated for a bunch of Oscars? That film spends at least a half an hour on the how of Monster making.

Yeah. And this film is like. like, ah, fine, sure. Step into my giant cavernous electro lab.

It's just like, it's just sitting here waiting for this moment. This film is like, sure, fine, you're a monster. And Joelle knows the power of techno babble, right?

We watched our track. We know that all you need is a couple lines of dialogue saying, blah, blah, reverse the polarity, but whatever the hell. And you're fine.

That's all you need. You don't need, you don't need these schematics. If Maggie Gillen-Hull had included all of that stuff, had tried to like, stitch together all this connective tissue to maybe make this film make a tiny bit more sense, it would have just dragged it to a halt.

And so I appreciate how much this film is just willing to kind of go all out in the things that it's best at, instead of kind of boring us with all this connective tissue. Did you have any other kind of, because there is, this is a pretty big cast, and it's a, in some ways, a pretty surprising cast. It's kind of constantly throwing fresh faces at you, including hilariously Maggie Gyllenhaal's brother, Jake Jillenhall, turns up as kind of a star of stage and screen. Were there supporting performances here that really stood out for any of you? I thought it was interesting that Jake, his character, they don't have a take on him, it doesn't seem to me. He's not a cad. He's not a jerk.

He's kind of a cipher. Yes. He's kind of a cipher. Yes, that's right. Now that I think about it, maybe that's the point. He's been, so much has been projected onto him by the monster that, that when you actually meet the guy, he's just like a lot of actors you sometimes meet who are just kind of like, the reason they're actors is that they kind of play a role. Jake is kind of fun in that role. Like he's the, Jake to me, is best on screen when he's either like super charming or total ass.

I think he plays both sides in a really interesting way. And so it wound up being like a really good role for him, I thought anyway. And I liked what Penelope Cruz was doing in the. the limited space she was given. I don't think she had like a lot of space to try a bunch of different things. But like she's kind of grounded. But it's really Annette Benning to me who I just the whole time I was like, this woman is up here doing it.

It's kooky. It's fun. Again, how often do you get to see like a female mad scientist who isn't just like completely off her rocker? Like it's usually like such an extreme where you're like, okay, I get it.

I thought this had like a level of like curiosity, which is often missing from science characters on TV and film. I think what maybe we don't get in other Frankenstein stories of morality of like, is this okay to do? Do I not do it? And what does that mean? And what does it mean for me as like a career person? I'm telling you I connected with every character in this movie in a way that felt so.

I was just like, the other movie that sort of reminding me of is Ava DuVernay's Rinkle in Time. Another film that's far from perfect, but it's so emotionally resonant that I can't help but be like, I love this movie. Somebody told me, they're like, I don't know if it's like movie worthy. And I was like, I just, please, if you have it and you can spend your money and go see it because it's so big and so huge and so ridiculous and so funny that you kind of just get swept up in it in a way that I really feel like it's possibly, it just feels very reminiscent of like your technicolor days. You're very big over the top of week. Sinners probably gave you this feeling.

Like I hope the Odyssey gives it to me. I just feel like if we're trying to keep cinema alive, this movie is doing a lot in favor of. being like we should have movie theaters. I'm glad you mentioned sinners, actually, because I was thinking about how, as a person who's really squeamish, and like, Stephen pointed out last night that this is a really squelchy movie.

There's a lot of, like... I mean, it's Frankenstein. Frankenstein is a squelchy guy. Exactly. I mean, there's definitely, you know, that aspect to it. It is not lost on me that the movies that I have enjoyed the most recently are sinners and this movie,

which are different kinds of horror, I think I'm going to have to get tougher is what I learned because the people who are doing interesting things, you know, the vehicle that I think right now, like I always thought of science fiction is like the vehicle that I prefer to talk about the world. But I think I'm going to have to get on board of the horror, guys. You know, for me, the sort of nihilism of saw and whatever and even scream and whatever, like doesn't appeal to me. Sure. Again, I keep saying this, but they're sort of tender and emotional and nests. made me, you know, again, like that emotional story really felt like it was being presented to me in a newer way. And this is, I think we've got to look to the horror, guys.

To the horror. It is a kind of golden age of horror. There's a lot of bad stuff out there, but the stuff that's good is phenomenal. All right. Well, we want to know what you think about the bride. There we go. Find us on Facebook at facebook.com slash PCHH and on letterboxed at letterboxed.com slash NPR pop culture. We'll have a link in our episode description.

Up next, what's making us happy this week. Now, it's time for our favorite segment of this week and every week. What's making us happy this week? Barry Hardiman, I'm going to start with you. What's making you happy this week? So big news in the Romantasy world, Sarah J. Mass. She is in the news. She's on a rival podcast this week and call her daddy.

And she is talking about what's coming next. And everybody is really excited about the latest installment of a court of thorns and roses, but for my money, what I really want to recommend people is the Throne of Glass series. Now, people, I know what you think about the first book in this series. I think those things, too, you have to power through it. You just do, because a time will come in book three and four when you will stand up and roar because an event that is so seismic, I am telling you, I literally want to put the only tattoo I have a lot of, ever really thought about getting is witch killer. It is such a fun and really sort of emotional.

And again, this is a particular kind of writing that is very plot heavy and moves with a real, you know, alacrity. You're definitely going to fly through it, which is why I say, you know, the writing is not perfect in the first book, but fly through it. You can do it. Just get the characters and then keep going because there's actually such a nice community of us on Reddit who are willing to talk with you and talk you through the first book. And even talk you through the last two, which you should read simultaneously, download the joint project onto your Kindle. I'm telling you it's great.

We are out here with open arms. We can take you away from the news. And anyway, it's Throne of Glass, Sarah J. Mass. So you're saying slog through the pilot. I know. I'm starting not to say that, Stephen. PCHH theme. Thank you, Barry Hardiman.

Joelle Monique. What's making you happy this week? I'm so glad that you brought this book because I also come to you. with a book from T. King Fisher. She's one of my favorite novelists. She writes a whole slew of things, really, but under this pen name, it's like romances, dark fantasies, like real adult books.

And what I really appreciate about them is a lot of her characters are older than 30. What? See yourself in these romances. Amazing. So I wanted to recommend her book Hemlock and Silver, which is a retelling of Snow White. It doesn't come from Snow White's perspective,

which scares people off from the book, but I promise you, like, trust her. It's so good. It features a woman who makes and tests poisons and she's called to the kingdom to figure out what's going on with snow. There's a talking cat. There's a, like, Soling guard. This is a really gentle, beautiful romance. It is such a lovely read. If you're, like, deep in the romance novels as I am, and you're looking for something that's fresh and different and delightful.

Hemlock and Silver really did it for me. So check out. And really all of her library. Pro sign. Yay. I'm so glad. All right. Thank you, Joelle, Monique.

Glenn Weldon, what's making you happy this week? Retirement plan is one of the animated shorts up for an Oscar this year. It's the first film by John Kelly. And it's narrated by Donald Gleason. And it's very minimalist in its kind of narrative approach and also in its animation itself. Just a guy listing all the things he's finally going to do, finally going to get around to once he retires. And we see a version. of him doing those things, and we watch him age as he does those things. And there's plenty

of solid jokes I don't want to spoil. But as it goes on, you begin to suspect that what you're watching isn't actually him actually doing these things. It's what he hopes he will do and realistically probably won't. So it sneaks up on you with not sadness, but poignancy and not resignation, but something like acceptance. But then you remember that what you're watching hasn't actually happened yet, and there's still a chance he could pull it out and actually do this. You just run through an entire gamut of emotions in just seven minutes. It's on the New Yorker's YouTube page, because of course it is. It's the one I'm going to be pulling for this year. It's retirement plan. Nice. Thank you. Glenn Weldon. So what is making me happy is a piece of

lovely news for film historians. The French filmmaker Georgesse Melius was a pioneer of movie special effects and science fiction. His film A Trip to the Moon from 1902, probably his best-known work. If you don't think you've seen it, you've seen it. You know the imagery. Melias is a major character in the movie Hugo and the book on which it's based. Melias made more than 500 short films, most of which have been destroyed or lost. And one of the most important films he made is a long lost short from 1897 called Gougouce and the Automaton. It's about 45 seconds long, and it features a magician with what is believed to be the first ever screen depiction of a robot. Now, a copy of the film.

You can see where I'm going with this. A copy of this film was recently discovered in a stash donated to the Library of Congress, and now it's been rescued, preserved, and made available. You can watch it online and see one of the earliest special effects ever captured on film. And I am such a sucker for this kind of stuff, seeing it. archived and preserved, getting a clearer picture of how film has evolved and just being reminded of how relatively recently this entire medium was invented. So that is Gougouz and the automaton by Georges. You can find it online for about the outlay of time you would spend

watching an Instagram reel. And that is what is making me happy this week. If you want links for what we recommended, plus some more recommendations, sign up for our newsletter at npr.org pop culture newsletter. That brings us to the end of our show, Joelle Monique, Barry Hardiman, Glenn Weldon. Thanks so much for being here. Thank you. Thanks for having me, Stephen. Thank you. This episode was produced by Hufsafah, Kayla Latimore, and Mike Katzif, and edited by our showrunner, Jessica Reedy. Hello, Come In, provides our theme music. Thank you for listening to Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR. I'm Stephen Thompson, and we will see you all next week.