Lisa Frankenstein

Cole Sprouse doesn’t talk <3

By Quinn McClurg

Want a simple, heartwarming, and tonally consistent movie to watch with your friends? Me neither!

Directed by Zelda Williams (Robin Williams’ daughter) and written by Diablo Cody (the writer for “Jennifer’s Body”) the plot of “Lisa Frankenstein” follows Lisa Swallows, a perfectly normal, well-adjusted teenager living in 1989. She maximizes her time doing cool girly things like getting electrocuted by tanning beds, doing charcoal rubbings of centuries-old gravestones, and falling in love with performative socialists who wear Friedrich Nietzsche. *sigh* she’s just like me. Anyways, thank god there’s a lustful dead nice-guy with a 152 year age gap to set things straight for the rest of the film!

Well, not exactly straight. From start to finish, “Lisa Frankenstein” is one of the most queer- and trans-coded movies I have recently had the pleasure of seeing, and is, as a result, extremely off-putting, affirming, unpredictable, and tonally inconsistent (all hallmarks of the best queer media)—I suspect these variables lead to the movie’s underperformance and polarization, but also its quick cult status.

Viewers are sure to fall in love with this film’s intricate costuming, satisfyingly smooth cinematography, and punchy color palettes no matter how much they actually enjoy the content of the film. The humor is perfect, cutting surprisingly cynically but subversively, and the nostalgia-bait (remember, set in 1989) is usually minimal but cleverly subtle, serving somewhat as a low-key love letter to other contemporary camp films of the 80s.

Whatever—it’s worth a watch whether you enjoy it or not. Especially considering “Argylle,” the new “Mean Girls,” and the despised “Madame Web,” “Lisa Frankenstein” might be the only recent cinema worth choosing.