CNN
—
“Luckiest Woman Alive” has quite a bit happening, in a means that undermines the film’s translation from ebook to display. Mila Kunis produces and stars on this #MeToo-tinged story, which awkwardly incorporates a mass faculty capturing in addition to gender and sophistication politics into what turns into an ungainly mixture of hot-button points in a single dramatic package deal.
Kunis performs Ani FaNelli, a have-it-all journal journalist near touchdown her dream job on the New York Instances and marrying her rich boyfriend Luke (Finn Wittrock), though there’s pressure over whether or not her skilled aspirations should take a again seat to his higher-paying profession.
A documentarian, nonetheless, is once more asking thorny questions concerning the faculty capturing that occurred when Ani was attending the distinguished Brentley College, bringing reminiscences flooding again concerning the sexual assault she skilled there, on the time receiving little help from her social-climbing mom (Connie Britton, decreased to a caricature).
Chiara Aurelia portrays the younger Ani, whose ordeal is graphically proven through the regular stream of flashbacks that assail her older self. These unflinching sequences recall “13 Causes Why,” one other Netflix manufacturing constructed round a high-school rape and pressures on a teen lady to stay silent.
Right here, the dilemma about what to say resurfaces for the grownup Ani, particularly with certainly one of her attackers having achieved a measure of fame, and worry that talking out will one way or the other derail the yellow-brick highway to high-society life that looms forward of her. Because the handsomely clueless Luke places it, why tackle “this factor that occurred to you so way back.”
As constructed, sadly, in an adaptation of the ebook written by its creator, Jessica Knoll, and directed by Mike Barker, “Luckiest Woman Alive” feels as if it’s juggling too many plates – becoming a member of the story in progress and laboring to attach the mass capturing to Ani’s story in a means that muddles the thriller. The dearth of perception concerning the true-crime style that helps drive the narrative – that’s, the documentary throughout the film – additionally represents a missed alternative.
Whereas Kunis and Aurelia convey Ani’s anguish, there’s a stick-figure high quality to the supporting gamers, a roster that features Jennifer Beals as her hard-charging editor, excluding a caring instructor (Scoot McNairy) who comes again into Ani’s life.
On its face, the mix of a high-profile lead, bestselling ebook and provocative material sounds just like the type of components that yields dividends for Netflix, and the film nonetheless may. However “Luckiest Woman Alive” falls in need of its promise, a reminder that, nonetheless ironic the title is meant to be, fortune tends to favor the daring.
“Luckiest Woman Alive” premieres October 7 on Netflix.