Becoming “the Bride”

Yesterday I watched The Bride, a Gothic science-fiction reinterpretation of the classic Frankenstein story.

At first I expected a horror film. After all, it begins with the familiar image: a scientist creates life, assembling a body and bringing it into existence through unnatural means.

But as the story unfolded, it surprised me.

For a moment, it even felt like a comedy.

The strange companionship between Frankenstein and his creation — Ida, later renamed Penelope — has something unexpectedly tender about it. Their awkwardness, their curiosity about the world, their attempts to understand love and existence are almost childlike. In those moments, the film becomes strangely warm.

Yet beneath that warmth lies something tragic.

Both characters suffer. Both struggle to find their place in the world. Both experience death — again.

And when they die, the story suggests that they will be brought back to life once more. In that sense, the ending almost circles back toward comedy: the cycle continues, the story begins again.

The Beauty of the “Mad” Characters

While watching, I realized that this film moved me in a way similar to other stories I love — such as Poor Things, Joker and Harley Quinn.

All of them feature characters who seem, in some way, “mad.”

But the madness that attracts me is not simply chaos or destruction. It is something else: a kind of purity.

These characters approach the world almost like children.

Frankenstein and Ida in The Bride. Bella in Poor Things. Even figures like Joker and Harley Quinn in their own distorted way.

They share something unusual: in a sense, they have already died once. And after that symbolic death, they begin a new life.

Because of that, they seem free from many of the fears that bind ordinary adults.

They explore the world directly.They express themselves without hesitation.They love passionately.They build their own rules and their own reality.

They move through life with a kind of fearless curiosity — something adults often lose.

Watching them makes me wonder:

Could I live like that?

Can We Be Reborn Without Dying?

Those characters experience literal or symbolic rebirth.

Frankenstein creates Ida from death. Bella in Poor Things begins life again with a new consciousness. The Joker, in his own dark way, emerges from a broken identity into a new self. They all cross some threshold — death, madness, transformation — and afterward they seem liberated.

But most of us never experience such a dramatic rebirth.

So the question arises: Can we live with that same freedom without dying first?

Can we rediscover that childlike passion for the world without losing ourselves completely?

Perhaps the answer is not to imitate their madness literally. Their worlds are often destructive as well as beautiful. Total freedom without reflection can also become chaos.

But maybe what we can learn from them is simpler:

to approach the world with curiosity, to express ourselves honestly, to allow passion and creativity into our lives again.

Not by destroying the old self, but by slowly loosening its rigid boundaries.

Becoming Oneself

At the end of the film, one moment stayed with me.

Ida finally discovers who she is.

She is no longer the person she once was. She is not Penelope, the name Frankenstein gave her. She is not merely Frankenstein’s creation or bride.

She is simply The Bride.

Not defined by others. Not defined by the past.

Just herself.

And perhaps that is the quiet message hidden inside this strange Gothic story.

We do not need to die and be reborn like Frankenstein’s creatures in order to begin again.

Sometimes it is enough to step out of the roles others assign to us.

To stop being someone’s project, someone’s expectation, someone’s label.

And to say, quietly but firmly:

I am simply myself.