Ani (Mila Kunis), a self-hating magazine writer, has achieved three status symbols to become the ironically and dramatically titled “Luckiest Girl Alive.” an eating disorder), and an upper-class fiancée (acquired through emotional repression). It will cement her transformation from Fanelli (played by Chiara Aurelia in flashback) to her intimidating new identity as Ani Harrison. The neck of her husband-to-be.
“Stop it, psycho,” Ani grunts at the beginning of many jarring monologues that last the length of the film. Her fang-baring narration sets the stage for a reverse transformation movie that allows carb-afraid perfectionists to enjoy pizza. But readers of Jessica Knoll’s novel of the same name know that she’s adapted here for the screen. One of Ani’s abusers, who was played, has been renamed a respectable public moralist. Ani was as successful as her bulletproof vest, but clashes with her mother (Connie Britton), her former teacher (Scoot her McNairy), and her documentary writer (Dharma her Abseid) led to a She was forced to reconsider her own facade.
The Kunis alpha female looks like a ferocious yet conspicuous fake. (Think Sheryl Sandberg as the villain in “Scooby-Doo.”) Her performance carries the film — a lucky break for director Mike Barker. resorts to filming a pat scene with Kunis staring at himself in the mirror. For example, when the crumbs in the corner of Abu Zeid’s lips symbolize her suspicion that this clumsiness cannot be trusted as a mouthpiece.
It’s baffling at first that Noll explicitly sets the film’s setting to 2015, the year her book was published. (For what? A one-liner about Hillary Clinton getting elected president?) Still, it took Knoll another year to speak candidly about how Ani’s trauma overlaps with her own. MeToo, when power has passed for healing and misogyny hides behind a mocking smile, don’t you get the joke?
“Yes,” Ani might counter—and she’s absorbed so many punch lines that, like culture in general, she’s ready to explode.
the luckiest girl alive
Rated R for sexual violence and language. Running time: 1 hour 53 minutes. watch on netflix.