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| All images courtesy: Focus Features |
What a time to be alive, when a new film is proudly advertised as being “from the acclaimed writer of Jennifer’s Body.” In recent years the general moviegoing population has started to come around to the idea that the 2009 horror/comedy, written and executive produced by Diablo Cody as her carte-blanche follow-up project to Juno, is and always has been a brilliant and subversive satire that came around years before American pop-culture was ready for it. But American pop-culture was REALLY not ready for it in 2009: while it found a passionate cult following from the start, it was widely dismissed, misunderstood, and actively looked down on in the mainstream discourse, in ways that were very symptomatic of the exact type of deeply-ingrained cultural misogyny that the film was savagely satirizing. Diablo Cody, director Karyn Kusama, and star Megan Fox have long deserved a major apology from the moviegoing public and the critical establishment over how savagely Jennifer’s Body was ripped apart when it came out; it was a temporary career-killer for all of them, despite now being widely celebrated as a beloved cult-classic. Now Diablo Cody has finally gotten that apology from Hollywood, in a chance to return to the same genre territory and make a spiritual sequel/sister film to Jennifer’s Body, Lisa Frankenstein. With Zelda Williams (daughter of Robin Williams) directing, this feels like a wonderfully weird return to Cody’s warped and highly stylized feminist-horror/comedy universe, albeit with a somewhat different tone and focus. While upon my first viewing I’m inclined to say that it doesn’t quite reach the same heights of subversive greatness that Jennifer’s Body did, Lisa Frankenstein is absolutely a great dark comedy in its own right, and one that absolutely deserves cult-classic status like its predecessor – although hopefully this time it won’t take a decade to get it.
It is 1989, and Lisa (Kathryn Newton) is a depressed and isolated teenage outcast, treated cruelly by her peers at school, and treated even worse by her abusive narcissist stepmom (Carla Gugino) at home. Her sanctuary from it all is an abandoned turn-of-the-century cemetery deep in the woods, where she spills out her feelings to the headstone of a young man who died a hundred years ago, who has become a sort of imaginary-boyfriend. But then, through the film’s warped fairytale logic, a wish made to the headstone and a bolt of lightning brings the young man back from the dead, as a shambling and still-rotten (Lisa) Frankenstein’s Monster (Cole Sprouse). He is totally devoted to her, and here to help her through the trials and traumas of her teen-girl-outcast existence – he just needs the occasional replacement part to freshen up his rotting body.
Lisa Frankenstein is very much a love-letter to a particular era of weird, dark, and eccentric comedies about outsider teenage protagonists that populated the late-80s and early-90s; the kind made by filmmakers like Tim Burton, producer Denise DiNovi, and John Waters. A whole lot of Heathers, just as much Edward Scissorhands, and a touch of Hairspray, filtered through Diablo Cody’s distinctively over-the-top feminist horror-comedy lens. Given that set of influences that the film very much wears on its sleeve, it should be no surprise that Lisa Frankenstein is definitely a different type of film from Jennifer’s Body: less bombastic gory horror elements (unlike its predecessor, this film just barely gets away with a PG-13), and more character-driven sardonic humor about the experiences of teen-girl angst and isolation. The film’s first half finds much of its humor skewering the casual cruelness that abounds just beneath the surface of its hyper-stylized and deliberately artificial pastel-colored suburbia. The second half moves into much more Heathers-ish biting dark comedy, using its horror elements very effectively while keeping its footing very much in outsider teen-comedy territory. And yet while it is a very different film from Jennifer’s Body in a lot of stylistic and tonal ways, it nonetheless absolutely feels like a sibling film and spiritual sequel. Indeed, Diablo Cody has gone as far as to say that Lisa Frankenstein is set in the same universe as Jennifer’s Body, and it definitely feels like it, despite the different focus.
Cody’s script is unashamedly very stylized and weird, in a way that viewers are going to either really love or find quite alienating, as was the case with Jennifer’s Body before it. This isn’t trying to be a movie for everyone, but if you are on Cody’s odd wavelength, the dialogue and character beats really work, and are very funny. The art design and central performances are essential to selling her weird vision, and both are absolutely up to the task. The colorful art design of the film’s heightened suburban world is fantastic; very Edward Scissorhands, in a way that perfectly suits the film, and that feels like an affectionate homage to early Tim Burton rather than derivative of it. The colorfulness is also very fitting for the film’s title; it totally nails the concept of a Lisa Frank/Frankenstein hybrid aesthetic. The music is also on-point, with a very good score, and excellent and well-used late-80s post-punk needle-drops by bands like Echo and the Bunnymen and The Jesus And Mary Chain.
The central performances are all very strong and well-suited to the material as well. Kathryn Newton is excellent as Lisa, bringing humor and sincere emotion and psychological depth to the troubled character, and keeping her a likable protagonist even as things spiral out of control. Carla Gugino devours the scenery as Lisa’s wicked stepmother: a dialed-up-to-11 narcissistic villain performance with major Mommie Dearest/Carrie energy, and just the right amount of camp. Cole Sprouse has easily the toughest job, with the entirely physical role of the mute Lisa Frankenstein’s Monster, and he knocks it out of the park. Using body language, physicality, and unintelligible grunts, he is able to make the creature an emotionally complex character who we genuinely feel for.
Lisa Frankenstein does have its flaws, and there were a couple narrative elements that I wasn’t totally convinced by. It takes a bit for the plot to really hit its stride, and for its dark-comedy tone to fully set. It is definitely a good movie from the start, with all the promising elements in place, but I felt it took a little bit for those elements to click together into something truly great. It gets there though, and I found that the film gets better as it goes along, in a way that I suspect will make it really fun on repeat viewings as well. I also wasn’t sold on the plot-devicey fairytale-magic kind of way that the creature is brought to life, and I wish it had leaned into the Frankenstein half of its play-on-words title a bit more, where that part of the story is concerned. But on the other hand, this movie is at its core a character piece and not a sci-fi story, and how and why the creature is alive doesn’t really matter; it just matters that he is alive, and now Lisa has to figure out how to handle the situation. So perhaps the film’s approach is the right one, rather than getting bogged down in a narrative explanation that is ultimately besides the point. And that is a small narrative gripe that is quickly forgiven once the story gets moving, and Lisa and the creature’s relationship starts developing.
Those small flaws or narrative quibbles aside, Lisa Frankenstein is a very strong, very compelling film, especially as it hits its narrative and tonal stride as it goes on. Diablo Cody remains an extremely unique comedy voice, and her return to the world of gleefully weird feminist horror-comedy is just as memorable as the first time. Her quirky style won’t be for everyone, but if it’s your cup of tea, you will most likely love Lisa Frankenstein. I would still give the edge to Jennifer’s Body as the better film of the two, but this one comes impressively close. The great performances and fantastically heightened art design perfectly compliment Cody’s script, and Zelda Williams proves herself to be a strong director well-suited to the odd sensibility of the material. With Cody explicitly saying that Lisa Frankenstein is set within the same narrative universe as Jennifer’s Body, one can’t help but wonder if she is planning to keep building out a larger camp-horror-comedy cinematic universe, with more sibling films and sort-of-sequels to come. I truly hope so, and I hope that unlike Jennifer’s Body, Lisa Frankenstein is successful enough that Cody and Williams will get to keep playing in this warped sandbox.
- Christopher S. Jordan
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