"Lisa, Bright and Dark" is a frustrating made for TV movie to watch. In some ways, it's really well made...but in other ways the movie really drops the ball. The overall effect is frustrating.
Through the course of this film, Lisa (Kay Lenz) is unraveling mentally. While the stupid and self-absorbed parents (Anne Baxter and John Forsythe) deny that she's having serious difficulties, it's obvious to anyone who cares that Lisa is a mess. After all, she's been lighting things on fire, slashing her wrists and has been in a stupor. The layman would say she's having a nervous breakdown and she keeps upping the ante in a desperate attempt to get her parents' attention...with little success. Her friends care and try a wacky intervention that left me confused...and it will really confuse you as well. What's also confusing is the end...which just seems abrupt.
With a small re-write, this would have been an excellent film and alerted folks to teen mental illness and parental neglect. But the ending and the intervention just seemed slapdash. Watch if you must and if you do at least you can seen Anson Williams and Erin Moran before they went to work on "Happy Days".
Through the course of this film, Lisa (Kay Lenz) is unraveling mentally. While the stupid and self-absorbed parents (Anne Baxter and John Forsythe) deny that she's having serious difficulties, it's obvious to anyone who cares that Lisa is a mess. After all, she's been lighting things on fire, slashing her wrists and has been in a stupor. The layman would say she's having a nervous breakdown and she keeps upping the ante in a desperate attempt to get her parents' attention...with little success. Her friends care and try a wacky intervention that left me confused...and it will really confuse you as well. What's also confusing is the end...which just seems abrupt.
With a small re-write, this would have been an excellent film and alerted folks to teen mental illness and parental neglect. But the ending and the intervention just seemed slapdash. Watch if you must and if you do at least you can seen Anson Williams and Erin Moran before they went to work on "Happy Days".