'The Bride' Movie Ending Explained & Summary: What Happens In The Mid-Credits Scene?

The Bride is the latest adaptation of the Frankenstein story, except director Maggie Gyllenhaal not only picks the Bride of Frankenstein as her protagonist, but also gives a feminist framework to the classic tale. The plot follows Frankenstein, or Frank as he is now called, searching for a suitable bride for himself after spending a century in loneliness, when he comes across Penelope Rogers, a woman brought back from the dead and with a deep past. Overall, the film is quite entertaining, even though it is not as profound as it originally seems, and deserves to be watched mostly for the visual splendor.

Spoiler Alert

What is the film about?

When Mary Shelley first started writing “Frankenstein” in 1816, which she initially thought would be just a short story, she had done so only on a dare by Lord Byron, who wanted each of them to write a ghost story to see whose was better. But as the ghost of Mary Shelley now appears on our screens at the beginning of The Bride, she explains that her story around Dr. Frankenstein and his monster did not cover even half of the vast depths of gothic horror that she actually had in mind. Having been diagnosed with a brain tumor and eventually dying from it at the age of 53, she could not get the time to write, say, or even think all that she wanted to express in front of the world. Therefore, she now returns, in the form of a supernatural ghost, and possesses the body of a woman in Chicago in 1936, when the city is ruled by the mafia. 

Ida is an escort by profession, and she is currently having to sit with her female associates and male bosses, none of whom care about her or the state of the capitalist world, where women are mistreated and exploited at every step. Ida has to oblige to her boss’ demand of feeding him an oyster, following which something stirs in her and she grows hysterical, at least to those around her. She is possessed by the ghost of Mary Shelley, who makes her blurt out one truth after another, but the company around her do not take well to what seems to be Ida’s hysteric outburst. The woman outright points out the misdeeds of a suited businessman sitting at a distance, calling him a monster and warning other women like her to be aware of him. It only takes a couple of more minutes for the businessman to wave his hand at the servers, who all revere him as a god.

Ida is, therefore, dragged out of the restaurant where the whole scene unfolds, and her bosses try to calm her down in the stairwell. But the woman’s behavior shows no sign of changing, as she continues rambling about the crimes of the businessman inside, when one of the men pushes her down the stairs, which immediately results in her death. Around the same time, the monster of Frankenstein, or Frank, as he prefers to be called, arrives in Chicago to meet with Dr. Cornelia Euphronius, a renowned doctor with special skills in reanimation and reinvigoration, the fantastical science of bringing life back to the bodies of deceased humans. Frank makes his demand very clear, as he has spent more than a century all by himself and is now yearning for a mate, a wife, and so he wants Dr. Euphronius to bring a dead woman back to life for him.

How do the couple start a revolution?

As fate would have it, the corpse dug up from a local cemetery and brought back to Dr. Euphronius’ laboratory is that of Ida, who undergoes a change in identity once she is brought back to life. Since it is Frank who technically decides her fate, it is he who gives her her new identity as well, calling her Penelope Rogers. Frank tells her that they had been married for a very long time, but an accident had caused her death and the loss of her memory, because of which she has no recollection of their happy past. Once this story sets into the mind of the Bride, Frank takes her to a theatre to watch a romantic film featuring his favorite actor, Ronnie Reed. They then go out dancing, where a group of men corner the Bride and try to assault her, and despite repeatedly trying to defuse the situation, Frank eventually kills the men with his brute force. This starts a desperate journey across the US for the couple, who have to run from the law after the murders in Chicago, and a few more along the way. In many ways, Frank and the Bride represent any ‘unusual’ couple facing raised eyebrows, jeers or outright assault in society because they do not fit in. There is a constant othering that Frank faces from the beginning of the film, as people refuse to talk to him or even stand and listen to him, seemingly because of the decay visible on him and the stench from having lived for more than a century. He is ecstatic to finally meet his favorite actor in person, but Ronnie Reed does not care for his wishes, even though he takes more notice of him than any other fan, again because of his unnatural appearance. In multiple scenarios, Frank acts like the gentle giant who is unstoppable once disturbed or angered beyond limits. 

The Bride looks no less monstrous from the traditional perspective, as her tongue is unnaturally black and an equally sinister black mark is visible on the side of her mouth, resembling smeared ink or paint. But the politics of gendered bodies step in in this context, and the Bride is not considered as much of an abominable monster as Frank. Simply because of her body, some men find her desirable and try to force themselves upon her, which ultimately has them flee Chicago. But the haunting that Ida had once been subject to continues inside the Bride’s mind as well, with the ghost of Mary Shelley still often taking control of the woman’s mind, which has a very physical effect as well. It is because of this supernatural effect that the Bride keeps talking about the evil intentions of men who keep harming women and trying to own them, all during frenzied moments of possession. But what appears to be hysterical to men gradually starts to seem like a ray of hope for women, especially those who have been in a similar situation to what the Bride is describing, which is possibly all women alive, considering the USA of the 1930s. The frustration and anger that already exists in women for having been exploited, misused and taken advantage of by men now suddenly finds a form of expression because of the Bride, and even her gentle partner, Frank. Therefore, more young women start dressing like her, painting their tongues and the sides of their mouths black, symbolizing the beginning of a revolution. This revolution is not necessarily violent or immediate at all times, but appears more like one that makes women aware of their position in society and therefore putting into motion a long-term effort that will change the situation towards them.

What is the real story of Ida?

The real story of Ida is eventually revealed when police detective Jake Wiles recognizes the Bride to be the same woman, and tells her story to his assistant, Myrna Malloy. Ida, an escort by profession, had been assigned as an informant by the Chicago police in an investigation case, along with a few other women of the same profession. They were supposed to hang out with men who did business with the crime boss of the city, Lupino, in order to gather information about the criminal empire running the city from the shadows. But as Ida and the other women had been close to securing important intel for the police, Lupino found out about them and had them killed. The crime boss also had a special penchant for collecting the severed tongues of whoever he had executed, and he did the same with these helpless women as well. Perhaps because he did not consider her to be too much of a threat, Lupino did not have Ida executed at the time, believing that killing her fellow spies would be enough to silence her. Maybe that would have been the case as well, had not the ghost of Mary Shelly started possessing her at this very time. In fact, I can even think of a possibility that Mary Shelly’s ghost started haunting Ida in the first place after sensing the woman’s decision to stay silent about the injustice she had witnessed, obviously out of fear. What followed was the chaos seen at the beginning of the film, during which Ida grabbed the attention of everyone in the restaurant and then started publicly shaming and exposing Lupino.

In retaliation, the mob boss signalled his many stooges to intervene and also take action against the daring woman. The two men seen with Ida during this time, James and Clyde, were corrupt police officers on Lupino’s payroll. It was probably because of these very men that Ida and her associates had been caught in the first place. Needless to say, the police officers who had appointed them to the job, like Jake Wiles, did nothing to protect their witnesses. The very reason for hiring escorts to do the risky job was the sheer indifference they had towards their lives. Now, when Ida, in the form of the Bride, spreads awareness against the exploitation of women in such a manner, and also keeps talking about Lupino’s treacherous crimes, especially against women, she is once again considered a major threat by the mob boss. Therefore, Lupino assigns Clyde to find the Bride and finish her off before it is too late, and he even kills James to prove his ruthlessness.

Does the Bride reject Frank’s proposal?

Frank and the Bride’s journey towards New York City also culminates in a moment of romantic climax, as he finally proposes to her, but it does not go as planned. You see, the Bride had already learnt the shocking truth that she was not actually Penelope Rogers, the woman that Frank had claimed her to be. At its center, The Bride is obviously a feminist film, and so the Bride’s rejection of Frank’s proposal is driven by the absolute rage she feels against him for having told her a false tale about her origin. In cooking up the story about how she was Penelope Rogers, and how she and Frank had been engaged before her tragic accident, Frank had taken away the most basic of her agencies, and manipulated her into holding inaccurate beliefs about her own self. Through her journey across the country with him, the Bride does see the genuine good that exists in Frank, and understands how he is misunderstood. She evidently falls in love with him as well, but then she cannot deny, or look past, the fact that he had lied about her entire existence. That she had been brought back to life, technically created, only in order to be Frank’s company also immediately sounds like the patriarchal concept that women were created only as complementary creatures to man, the first creation. Therefore, Penelope now rejects Frank’s proposal and instead embraces her real identity as the Bride, a self-independent woman who can easily pave her own path forward.

Do the Bride and Frank reunite in the end?

But the feelings of love and trust that the Bride had developed towards Frank do not evaporate with this development, and instead they take center stage when Frank is ultimately shot down by policemen. Realizing that her partner is dead, the Bride brings his corpse back to Dr. Euphronious, begging her to bring him back to life, this time for her sake. Unfortunately, she also brings the police with her, as well as Clyde, who had been tailing the couple for some time now. When it’s most suitable for him, Clyde guns down the Bride, killing her inside Dr. Euphronious’ laboratory, and immediately gets arrested by the police as well, now being led by Myrna Malloy. There is clearly a significant change in the way that the police force works at present, under the leadership of a woman, instead of a man. Around this time, the ghost of Mary Shelley takes a more out-of-body form, as in, she does not remain restricted to haunting the mind of any particular woman, and instead appears to Dr. Euphronious and her assistant, Greta, at the same time. 

She insists that Frankenstein and the Bride must be brought back to life, and Myrna encourages the doctor to do so. Thus, at the end, Myrna witnesses a flash inside the laboratory, and we see the hands of both Frank and the Bride move in the last shot. This does suggest that the two have been woken up or reanimated once again. However, there is absolutely no guarantee that the two actually come back to life in the true sense and reunite. Firstly, they are monsters, or reanimated corpses, to begin with, and so it is possible that they would hardly have any life force left after multiple reinvigoration procedures. More importantly, when Ida was first brought back to life, she had no recollection of her identity, and so Frank and the Bride will now not remember who they are. Therefore, there is no possibility for them to reunite or be together happily ever after, for even if they are successfully reinvigorated, they would simply be reanimated bodies without souls, or without their original souls and feelings.

Is Lupino finally arrested?

The Bride ends with a mid-credits scene, in which Jake Wiles, who had retired from his post as a police detective, conducts an informal raid at the safehouse of crime boss Lupino, accompanied by a big group of women, all dressed as the Bride. These women are part of the revolution that the Bride had originally started, and they are now ready to do her work. Therefore, the idea of the Bride still lives on, even though she is dead, or has lost her memories and her real self, at best. This scene presents a fantastic kind of revenge, as the women take down all of Lupino’s guards and henchmen, and also have the vile man tied to a chair. The mark of the Bride is forcefully made on his lips and the side of his mouth, and the shattered jars containing the tongues that Lupino used to collect from his victims lay on the table in front of him. This suggests that either his own tongue has been severed, or worse, many of these tongues have been shoved into his mouth. Thus, Lupino does not seem to be officially arrested in the end, but he is surely taken down, as the man will either die at the end of this confrontation, or might live a harmless life from here on.

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