Mila Kunis in Jessica Knoll Adaptation – The Hollywood Reporter

Ani FaNelli (Mila Kunis) lives a life of luxury, regimental and, by some, an enviable life. The main character of Netflix The luckiest girl alive writes for a slick women’s magazine, got engaged to a Nantucket summer poster guy, and wears designer clothes that fit her slim figure. She has good taste, a sharp personality and a caustic tongue.

When we meet Ani, shopping at Williams-Sonoma with her fiancé, Luke Harrison IV (Finn Wittrock), the outlines of her meticulously orchestrated existence are evident. But so does the anxiety energy that pervades beneath it. The wide-eyed brunette struggles with memories of a traumatic high school experience, marked by gun violence and sexual assault.

Adapted from the best-selling novel of the same name by Jessica Knoll, The luckiest girl alive struggles to balance its dual aspirations: to deliver an emotional story of survival and encapsulate its appeal in the recklessness of publishing comedies like Freeform’s Bold Type. These commitments are not necessarily contradictory, but The luckiest girl alive fail to adequately justify their union. The result is a distant, deviant film that feels slippery rather than evocative. Part of that is due to the inherent challenges in translating first-person narratives onto the screen. Even if other movies, like Lost Girl (but The luckiest girl alive compared), managed more effectively, it is difficult to capture that level of interaction and closeness with pictures.

Films by Mike Barker (The story of the maid) with a script by Knoll, seemingly going through Ani’s discovery, triggered by an inquiring documentary filmmaker (Dalmar Abuzeid) determined to uncover the true story behind the high school shooting. her famous private school. He wanted to give Ani a chance to clarify her name, to counter the misrepresentation that portrayed her as an accomplice instead of a victim. Imprisoned by his insistence during an interview, Ani finds herself in a difficult position: defending the life she’s struggled to build or telling the truth about her experience.

Considering how often society betrays survivors, Ani’s reluctance to come under public scrutiny is understandable; The luckiest girl aliveThe story’s story matches the bleak state of affairs. The film takes place two years before #MeToo was born, and this Friday’s release almost marks five years since the height of the movement. It’s hard not to think about recent cases of famous women speaking out about harassment, assault, and abuse at the hands of powerful men when it was revealed that Ani’s demon appeared under her control. shape Dean Barton (Alex Barone), a hopeful congressman. initially suggested Ani participate in the shooting. In the years since the tragedy, Dean, now hemiplegic from constant trauma, has become a staunch advocate for gun control and a public figure.

The luckiest girl alive spends a considerable amount of time on Ani’s hesitation, which goes beyond whether or not to participate in the documentary. Luke, who works in finance, was recently promoted to head his company’s Europe office, which means Ani may have to move to London after the wedding. Meanwhile, Ani’s boss (Jennifer Beals) wants her protector – because of some vague contractual arrangement – to move with her to New York Times Magazine as a senior editor. Multiple choices – to document or not, sever her career or not – weigh heavily on the story, which soon starts to feel like it’s simply too much going on.

The film shifts chaotically between Ani’s growing pressure and her traumatic past. These flashbacks are triggered by normal routines: Knife testing with her fiancé evokes memories of using cooking tools for protection; Watching the rhythmic beats of the soles on the treadmill reminded her of the approaching footsteps of her school shooter. At first, Ani’s recollections were only brief recollections, but like The luckiest girl alive The closer it gets to the finale, the more time it spends in the past. Through these scenes, the challenges a young Ani (Chiara Aurelia) faces as a working-class student at a tony prep school become clearer. Aurelia delivers a dramatic and confident transformation in a film that is merely the right performances. She plays a softer version of Ani, but invests her with less seriousness to gauge telegraph and contextualize Ani’s piercing ability in the future.

The luckiest girl alive It takes time to come to a conclusion that most viewers would guess halfway through. The nearly two-hour duration evokes a sense of sleepiness that makes the film struggle to move. Whether it’s due to a lack of material or direction, Kunis’ portrayal feels broken and incomplete long after parts of the character should have started to fall into place. By the time Ani was deciding what to do about the documentary (and her life), it’s hard not to feel that we should know her at least a little better.