A sparky addition to the rom-zom-com roll-call that includes such diverse films as Brian Yuzna’s Return of the Living Dead 3 and Edgar Wright’s Shaun of the Dead, Jeff Baena’s tale of love after death sees Aubrey Plaza letting rip as the eponymous girl unaware of her own mortality. Stricken with grief by the loss of his girlfriend, dorky emo Zach (Dane DeHaan) is astonished when she shows up at her parents’ house, an inexplicable occurrence that they deem “a miracle”.
Normal relations resume temporarily, but there’s something alarming about Beth’s twitchy lust for life, causing Zach to be even more scared of her than usual. Sensibly prioritising straight-faced weirdness over goofy gags, writer/director Baena keeps things just the right side of believable, eschewing explanation in favour of cracked domesticity. John C Reilly and Molly Shannon are terrific as Beth’s gaily traumatised parents, but Plaza steals the show with one foot in the grave, her rotting heroine ricocheting between adolescent snarkiness and cadaverous rage, a lethal combination of which no one around her has the measure.
