Diablo Cody stuffs her “Lisa Frankenstein” script with enough ‘80s references to fuel a Madonna revival.
In everything from music to gum, this is a classic wallow in the trends of the time. Unfortunately, the story that drives it isn’t exactly an Acura Integra.
Borrowing from Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein,” the goth comedy finds Lisa Swallows, a “Breakfast Club” reject, warming to a statue in a deteriorating graveyard. He’s her dream date, filled with everything her lab partners aren’t. When a storm revives the 19th century dreamboat, she’s faced with introducing him to polite society.
Unfortunately, she has an evil stepmother, a popularity-crazed stepsister and a clueless dad who don’t understand who she is or what she’d want to do with a corpse.
Directed by Zelda Williams, “Lisa Frankenstein” makes great use of period pieces (including a home tanning bed) and lets Lisa (Kathryn Newton) try out a host of looks, right out of the era’s biggest films.
While that stepmother (deliciously played by Carla Gugino) makes no bones about her feelings, she doesn’t exactly have the upper hand in the relationship. When mom's supposed to be at a convention, Lisa makes tracks and finds the monster (Cole Sprouse) looks better after every zap in the tanning bed.
Sis (Liza Soberano), meanwhile, can’t quite figure out why Lisa doesn’t want to follow in her pageant footsteps. She tries to introduce her to the school’s elite but the newbie isn’t biting. And here’s where “Lisa Frankenstein” veers from its “Mean Girls” relatives. Lisa never seems unable to traverse the mine fields of high school. She walks confidently and even toys with the hottie her sister wants. Like Emma Stone in “Easy A,” she has her own agenda and isn’t about to let it fester in her trapper keeper.
The ghoulish boyfriend represents something most teen boys aren’t – insightful. As a result, death be damned, he seems like a better catch than anyone the football team could cough up.
Williams rolls through plenty of expected situations, but gets to a point where it seems there is no easy exit. The film, as a result, heads where Tim Burton wouldn’t.
Newton does a fine job playing the edges and Soberano is everything you’d want out of an actress playing a role tailored for Phoebe Cates.
While Sprouse doesn’t get much in terms of dialogue (he grunts until the end), he does play into the hands of his intended. Part Edward Scissorhands, part Sweeney Todd, he’s just what a goth teen romance needs.
Whether “Lisa Frankenstein” will spark another teen screen revival is anyone’s guess. It’s not the John Hughes special we need but it is a nostalgic look at a time when dreams were big and hair was bigger.
