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Lisa Frankenstein
Fans of Tim Burton films like Edward Scissorhands and Beetlejuice will definitely have a head start with 2024's Lisa Frankenstein, a loopy and bizarre comic thriller that features a screenplay that's kind of all over the place, but it does hold viewer attention right up to a truly nonsensical finale.
Lisa is a teenage social outcast whose mother was brutally murdered a year ago and has been taken in by her best friend Taffy's family. Lisa confesses to Taffy that she is having a relationship with a corpse and not long after that, said corpse shows up at Taffy's house when only Lisa is home, covered in mud and feces. Lisa hides him in the house and is somehow able to communicate with him, despite the fact that he cannot speak. It's also revealed that the corpse is missing a few body parts that, with the aid of few minutes in a tanning booth, make him almost human again, though still mute and all it cost were the death of two people and the dismemberment of a third.
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Diablo Cody, who won an Oscar for writing Juno, takes a completely different and hard to follow look at teen angst that spends a whole lot of time with exposition and introducing characters than really necessary. After she moves in with Taffy's family, there is a very long sequence where Lisa is at a party and she drinks something that appears to have been drugged with something. She is observed stumbling all over the party and we think it's going to lead to something specific about the corpse, but it doesn't. The contrived ignorance of Taffy's family to the corpse is also a little hard to take. And just when it looks like Lisa and her corpse are going to live happily after ever, she says she wants to lose her virginity to Michael Trent, the big stud on Lisa's high school campus. I expected a tighter screenplay from Diablo Cody.
Despite the odd story, I found myself oddly riveted to this film that is watchable as you don't think about it too much. The film featured impressive production values, including dazzling color schemes, similar to the ones utilized by Burton in Edward Scissorhands and some truly bizarre characters. The title character reminded me of Lydia Deitz in Beetlejuice, who goes through a lot of changes before the credits roll. The weird animated opening credits even reminded me of another Tim Burton film: The Nightmare Before Christmas.
Kathryn Newton, who I haven't seen since she played Reese Witherspoon's daughter on the HBO series Big Little Lies, gives a star-making performance in the title role and she is well matched by Cole Sprouse, who played Ross; son, Ben, on Friends and starred with his twin brother Dylan on The Suite Life of Zack and Cody, matches her scene for scene as the corpse. Mention should also be made of a hysterical supporting turn from Carla Gugina as Taffy's mother. It doesn't provide answers to all of the answers it poses, but it's never boring. Director Zelda Williams is the daughter of the late Robin Williams.
Fans of Tim Burton films like Edward Scissorhands and Beetlejuice will definitely have a head start with 2024's Lisa Frankenstein, a loopy and bizarre comic thriller that features a screenplay that's kind of all over the place, but it does hold viewer attention right up to a truly nonsensical finale.
Lisa is a teenage social outcast whose mother was brutally murdered a year ago and has been taken in by her best friend Taffy's family. Lisa confesses to Taffy that she is having a relationship with a corpse and not long after that, said corpse shows up at Taffy's house when only Lisa is home, covered in mud and feces. Lisa hides him in the house and is somehow able to communicate with him, despite the fact that he cannot speak. It's also revealed that the corpse is missing a few body parts that, with the aid of few minutes in a tanning booth, make him almost human again, though still mute and all it cost were the death of two people and the dismemberment of a third.
Diablo Cody, who won an Oscar for writing Juno, takes a completely different and hard to follow look at teen angst that spends a whole lot of time with exposition and introducing characters than really necessary. After she moves in with Taffy's family, there is a very long sequence where Lisa is at a party and she drinks something that appears to have been drugged with something. She is observed stumbling all over the party and we think it's going to lead to something specific about the corpse, but it doesn't. The contrived ignorance of Taffy's family to the corpse is also a little hard to take. And just when it looks like Lisa and her corpse are going to live happily after ever, she says she wants to lose her virginity to Michael Trent, the big stud on Lisa's high school campus. I expected a tighter screenplay from Diablo Cody.
Despite the odd story, I found myself oddly riveted to this film that is watchable as you don't think about it too much. The film featured impressive production values, including dazzling color schemes, similar to the ones utilized by Burton in Edward Scissorhands and some truly bizarre characters. The title character reminded me of Lydia Deitz in Beetlejuice, who goes through a lot of changes before the credits roll. The weird animated opening credits even reminded me of another Tim Burton film: The Nightmare Before Christmas.
Kathryn Newton, who I haven't seen since she played Reese Witherspoon's daughter on the HBO series Big Little Lies, gives a star-making performance in the title role and she is well matched by Cole Sprouse, who played Ross; son, Ben, on Friends and starred with his twin brother Dylan on The Suite Life of Zack and Cody, matches her scene for scene as the corpse. Mention should also be made of a hysterical supporting turn from Carla Gugina as Taffy's mother. It doesn't provide answers to all of the answers it poses, but it's never boring. Director Zelda Williams is the daughter of the late Robin Williams.