Luckiest Girl Alive (Netflix, 2022)
Luckiest Girl Alive wants to be a gripping thriller in the vein of Gone Girl and The Girl on the Train. It mostly succeeds, thanks to an excellent star turn by Mila Kunis.
The film, directed by Mike Barker, is based on the bestseller by Jessica Knoll, which she partly based on traumatic events in her real life.
The story concerns a young woman, Ani FaNelli, who seems to have it all: a bright career as a journalist at a glossy magazine with hopes of becoming senior editor at The New York Times magazine. And also a loving fiancé who is from money and a gorgeous wedding to look forward to.
But when the director of a crime documentary wants to ask her some pressing questions about the school shooting she survived in her younger years, her life swiftly begins to unravel.
It also brings back memories of another, even more traumatic experience which has to do with a horrifying sexual assault and which she has kept secret for all those years.
It’s easy to see what attracted Mila Kunis to the lead role. Even though we love her for comedic roles in light hearted films like The Spy who dumped me, this gives her the chance to flex her dramatic muscles.
Kunis definitely goes all-in on the role. Like Emily Blunt in The Girl on the Train she carries the movie, and like Rosamund Pike in Gone Girl she adds a lot of depth to the character.
The problem with Luckiest Girl Alive is that at times it tries a little too hard. From the moment we meet her, Ani starts having disturbing visions, which makes it all too clear that trouble lies ahead.
But British filmmaker Mike Barker is not a visionary director like Fincher, who elevated Gone Girl to the level of a universal battle between the sexes.
Barker is more of a journeyman. Early on in his career he made the kidnap thriller Best Laid Plans, starring Reese Witherspoon, which can be described as ‘Fargo-esque’ and is well worth checking out.
In one of those odd coincidences Barker later went on to direct some episodes of the Fargo tv-series, while Witherspoon’s company was going to produce Luckiest Girl Alive for her to star in.
In the end, Witherspoon dropped out, the movie went to Netflix and Barker came in to direct.
He mostly does a good job, and it is better than The Girl on the Train, which was a fine Hitchcock-like thriller, until it went off the rails in the final reel.
However, at times the glossy look of Luckiest Girl Alive jars with the portrayal of the more sensitive (and also more graphic) parts of the story. It also contains some superfluous dialogue that could have been cut out.
At times the movie wants to have its cake and eat it too: it wants to tell a morality tale, while at the same time providing thrilling entertainment. And that doesn’t always feel quite right.
But what saves the day is that the story itself is absolutely worth telling. The impact of both school shootings and sexual assault is definitely made felt.
And both Chiara Aurelia (who plays the young Ani) and Kunis are terrific.