Gyllenhaal made quite the splash with her impressive directing debut on “The Lost Daughter,” a film about a middle-aged professor who gets caught up in a bit of drama involving a younger woman while on vacation, leading her to reflect upon her troubled past. Jessie Buckley, who did an excellent job playing the younger version of the movie’s protagonist in flashbacks, is now reuniting with Gyllenhaal for her Frankenstein movie, with Buckley reportedly set to portray the film’s version of the Bride. Christian Bale, Annette Bening, Penelope Cruz, and Peter Sarsgaard (who’s also married to Gyllenhaal) will further round the horror pic’s pretty awe-inspiring ensemble.
If there’s a downside to all this, it’s that Gyllenhaal’s project has the misfortune of arriving on the heels of “Poor Things,” a period movie that is also about a recently deceased young woman who’s brought back to life through Scienceā¢ and stirs up trouble when she refuses to conform to the expectations of the repressive, patriarchal society surrounding her. That’s not to suggest Gyllenhaal’s movie is going to look or feel remotely anything like Yorgos Lanthimos’ critically acclaimed dark sci-fi comedy. (Do anyone’s movies actually look or feel like Yorgos Lanthimos’ work?) Still, it feels like the pair are inevitably going to be compared, whether that’s fair or not.
We’ll keep you posted on Maggie Gyllenhaal’s “Frankenstein” movie (and all the other Franken-films in the works, for that matter).