Gyllenhaal Cuts Sexual Violence in Critically Panned Film

Maggie Gyllenhaal has revealed that Warner Bros made her cut down some of the sexually violent scenes in The Bride!, after the film was critically panned.

The filmmaker, 48, said that what is depicted in the final edit is a 'little bit pulled back' from the original version, after she was 'taken to task' over the sexual violence during test screenings.

The Bride! stars Jessie Buckley in the titular role as the Bride of Frankenstein, with the famous Monster played by Christian Bale, and contains lots of graphic violence and scenes of sexual assault. 

Speaking to The New York Times, Gyllenhaal explained how she faced pushback from some female viewers who complained that they 'didn't want to see a woman being violated'.

However, the actress pointed out that sexual violence was 'a major reality' in the world, and stressed the importance of not sanitising that onscreen, insisting 'we need to see it in a way that is very hard to watch'.

Speaking about the many big screenings in malls that the studio ran, she said: 'And one of the things that they brought up was the violence: Is it too violent? 

'And I was talking about it with a girlfriend of mine, who said - and she wasn’t being reductive - “I wonder if you had been a man making this movie, if you would have had the same response".'

As a result of the feedback the studio made her cut some of the scenes, with Gyllenhaal recalling: 'I was asked to take some of it out, and I did. So what you’re seeing is even a little bit pulled back from what was originally in the movie. 

'But I want to talk about the sexual violence, because that’s another thing that I have been taken to task for. I had a couple of women say, “I don’t want to see a woman being violated.” 

'And I think, I also don’t want to see that. And yet that is a major reality in the culture that we’re living in - just in the time I was cutting this movie, how much wildly disturbing brutality against women there has been in the world.'

'And so if we’re going to see it, we need to see it in a way that is very hard to watch, because it is very awful.'

Citing her breakout role in 2002 erotic romcom-drama, Secretary, she added: 'I am sure that I have been thoughtful about this particular subject, and yet it will be hard to watch. I think we can take it.'

Speaking to Deadline at the London premiere last weekend, the two-time Oscar nomineeinsisted that the 'major issue' of The Bride of Frankenstein was consent.

'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,' she pointed out.

'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. I mean, what about her? And that’s what this movie takes on.'

The Bride! takes its cues from the 1935 film Bride of Frankenstein where Elsa Lanchester played both Mary Shelley and the Bride, but Buckley one-ups her by pulling triple duty in this version, playing the titular character, the Frankenstein author and murdered woman Ida.

The film sees Shelley deciding to possess sex worker Ida in 1930s Chicago, before she is brutally killed by gangsters, but is then resurrected after Bale's Frank begs Dr Euphronius (Annette Bening) to create him a companion.

The reanimated couple quickly get into a violent confrontation and decide to go on the run to evade capture Bonnie and Clyde-style, while being pursued by Peter Sarsgaard and Penélope Cruz.

But ahead of it being release in cinemas this Friday, The Bride! has been hit by a slew of scathing reviews, with critics branding it a 'catastrophically poor misfire' and a 'divisive fever dream'.

A selection of film buffs called two-time Oscar nominee's latest project 'one of the absolute worst movies' they have had to watch - and said not even Buckley's committed performance can save it. 

The eagerly anticipated movie received a number of shocking zero and one-star reviews from selection of film buffs, though the likes of The Guardian, The BBC and The Standard stood apart from the crowd by each awarding it four stars. 

The New York Post's zero-star takedown claims the viewers 'never believes Buckley and Bale in their poorly constructed roles or sympathise with their us-against-the-world plight'. 

Johnny Oleksinski wrote: 'The Bride!, one of the absolute worst movies I have had the displeasure of watching in this job. It's a struck-by-lightning shocker to see a big Hollywood studio's riff on a story as old and overexplored as 'Frankenstein' — starring an Oscar winner and two nominees, no less — be so slathered in ineptitude.

While The Hollywood Reporter's review of the 'wretched mess' of a movie features an onslaught of fury aimed at Buckley, just as the she is leading the race to bag an Oscar for her role in Hamnet.

David Rooney states: 'The very capable ensemble, all of whom have done impressive work elsewhere, mostly gets smothered by the over-conceptualized, over-intellectualized approach to the material.

'There's a glimmer of pathos, nicely played by Bale, but pretty much everything here feels like it's being done for effect rather than to convey real emotion.

'That's the case especially with Buckley's shouty performance in the title role. What a strange quirk of timing that the Irish actress will likely be winning an Oscar for Hamnet just as this wretched mess is unleashed upon the world.'

The Times also blasted the Irish actress' performance as 'astonishingly poor' and even claimed her work in 'Hamnet might be viewed in a new and unflattering light' following The Bride!

In another withering takedown of the movie, Empire's Leila Latif said: 'Ultimately what the film most exudes is incompetence. Despite flashes of glory, the editing is chaotic. Character appearances and costumes appear out of sequence.

'The Bride! is a crushing disappointment that almost obscures the brilliance and sensitivity director Maggie Gyllenhaal displayed in The Lost Daughter.'

Meanwhile The Telegraph's Tim Robey penned: 'So much talent has been wasted here. It could have explored the idea that the dead Ida has been non-consensually exploited. Or Shelley's fury at the patriarchy could have exploded out of Buckley's fizzing Bride. 

'What happens instead is humdrum, generic and all the more unsatisfying.'

Variety's Owen Gleiberman has been put off watching another Frankenstein movie again following reviewing The Bride!

He wrote that the 'feminist take-off on the Frankenstein myth could have used more storytelling. The movie was all baroque production design and no pulse. It was so top-heavy with lavish retro pomposity that it made me never want to see another 'Frankenstein' movie again.'

Despite the sea of negativity, not all critics reacted so acidly to the moview, with the BBC branding it 'exhilarating' while The Guardian claimed 'without Jessie, the film would have been lacking an enjoyable spectacle of married bliss'.

The BBC's Caryn James wrote: 'Buckley gives a ferocious performance, but it takes a while to believe in the Bride's character, not because she doesn't know herself but because Gyllenhaal's stylistic shifts keep us at a distance. 

'For much of the film the Bride is more an idea of female empowerment than a person, and the presence of Mary Shelley, author of Frankenstein, doesn't help. 

'The film is gigantic in scale, and throughout, even when The Bride! is short on emotion, its bold vision is exhilarating.'

The Standard also gave the film four stars, with India Block opining: 'The Bride! is a whacky retro rollercoaster ride with lots of ideas to throw at the wall, along with various bodily fluids. Not everything sticks, but it will keep you squirming in your seat by delivering regular shocks.

While The New York Time's Manohla Dargis claimed Gyllenhaal's movie is 'relatable for women'. 

She wrote: 'The whole thing is exhausting, at times wincingly self-indulgent, entirely heartfelt and yet also relatable, perhaps especially for women who, when confronted with unrelenting monstrousness, need to give birth to their own monsters.'