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Lisa Frankenstein, directed by Robin Williamns' daughter Zelda Williams and scripted by Diablo Cody (Juno, Jennifer's Body), tells a familiar story (Mary Shelley's Frankenstein), but brought to the 1980s with a whiff of teenage trouble.
It is 1989 and Lisa (Kathryn Newton) is a high school girl who is not at all popular. She dresses poorly, wears bad make-up and her hair is even worse, wearing hairspray by the tube like a good eighties girl.
Lisa likes to read in the cemetery, especially at the grave of a Victorian boy. One night, at a party, there is a thunderstorm and our friend comes back to life in search of Lisa.
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The film offers a romantic story with an air of gothic poetry disguised as teenage humour. Lisa is a girl who has been deeply scarred by the death of her mother and her personality itself is already very similar to that of a gothic girl in the way she interacts with the tombstone of the resurrected young man.
When this young man is brought back from the dead by Lisa's wish, his gothic personality comes to the fore. She begins to dress in black and develops a relationship with the young man that could be somewhat unhealthy, but that has a lot to do with how Lisa has more of a fondness for death than for life.
The pace and mood of the film is in keeping with Lisa's personality because everything seems to be told from her perspective. Lisa sees things quite seriously while the people around her act as if everything is fine and Lisa is reproached for not acting like them.
The stepmother acts as if everything is perfect in her family and is upset that Lisa does not meet that requirement. It can be understood that this is the story of a misfit who feels she doesn't fit in and can only find comfort in a different being, in this case the resurrected young man.
In that respect the story is beautiful and anyone who feels they are a misfit can identify with Lisa.
It's a comedy that while it could have been better, I found it quite funny. I loved all the aesthetics, the costumes, especially Lisa's, which reminds me a bit of Tim Burton's style in many of his films.