Luckiest Girl Alive

Kunis plays Ani FaNelli, a have-it-all magazine journalist close to landing her dream job at the New York Times and marrying her wealthy boyfriend Luke (Finn ...

But “Luckiest Girl Alive” falls short of its promise, a reminder that, however ironic the title is intended to be, fortune tends to favor the bold. As constructed, unfortunately, in an adaptation of the book written by its author, Jessica Knoll, and directed by Mike Barker, “Luckiest Girl Alive” feels as if it’s juggling too many plates – joining the story in progress and laboring to connect the mass shooting to Ani’s story in a way that muddles the mystery. [Mila Kunis](https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/24/world/mila-kunis-stand-with-ukraine-cnnheroes/index.html) produces and stars in this #MeToo-tinged story, which awkwardly incorporates a mass school shooting as well as gender and class politics into what becomes an ungainly mix of hot-button issues in one dramatic package.

Luckiest Girl Alive not only dramatizes a school shooting in poor taste, it has the gall to use one as the backdrop while it also exploits rape trauma in ...

Ordinarily this moment in a film would feel triumphant, but it’s here you realize “Luckiest Girl Alive” has exploited both school shootings and rape trauma for a self-actualization narrative that ultimately ends with Ani finding value not in the release of her repressed emotions through this writing, but in the shallow achievement of viral fame. Through flashbacks and Ani’s narration (which is haphazardly deployed throughout as her cynical inner thoughts, an interview for a documentary, and the copy for a piece she writes during the film’s denouement), we learn that one of the survivors, now a gun reform activist, claims that Ani was in on the shooting—but also that this same survivor was one of three classmates who gang-raped Ani at a school dance after party just weeks before the shooting. Ani’s wedding dress is from Saks 5th Avenue (the one on 5th Avenue!), but she makes it clear to her rich friends that her mother shops at T.J. [Chiara Aurelia](/cast-and-crew/chiara-aurelia)), is a survivor of the “deadliest private school shooting in U.S. [Mike Barker](/cast-and-crew/mike-barker)’s brutal blocking of the rape sequence, Aurelia does a fine job in showing Ani’s pain and resistance during, confusion immediately after, and later hesitation to report due to internalized shame. She’s written “1,500 stories about how to give a blow job” but all she really wants is a job at the New York Times Magazine so she can be “someone people can respect.” Ani is engaged to an old money scion named Luke ( [Finn Wittrock](/cast-and-crew/finn-wittrock), given nothing to do), who is more of a box to check towards Ani’s goal of unquestionable social legitimacy than anything else.

Luckiest Girl Alive full tracklist from the Netflix movie starring Mila Kunis, including brand new song I Know Where I've Been by Elle King and Linda Perry.

For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to the [Radio Times podcast](https://www.radiotimes.com/podcasts/) with Jane Garvey. [Sign up for Netflix from £6.99 a month](https://www.netflix.com/gb/). The song playing during Luckiest Girl Alive's closing credits is I Know Where I've Been, a brand new song written especially for the movie. - “Pump Up the Volume” by M/A/R/R/S - “Feel So Good” by Mase - “Paradiso” by Charlotte Gainsbourg - “Put It in Your Mouth” by Akinyele feat. - “Awake” by Generationals You can see the full tracklist below: - “I Think I’m Paranoid” by Garbage - “Sunny” by Blake Swann - “Bossa Nova U.S.A.” by Dave Brubeck Quartet

Netflix's "Luckiest Girl Alive" stars Mila Kunis as Ani and Chiara Aurelia as her younger self, an adaptation of the book by Jessica Knoll.

A lot of women and people everywhere are dealing with kind of some of the issues and topics that we touched on in the movie. Part of the reason I wanted to work on this project is that every single person involved is truly incredible and amazing at what they do. Please note that if you purchase something by clicking on a link within this story, we may receive a small commission from the sale. For the first and second days, we worked through the shooting sequence and then we moved on to working on the sexual assault scenes on the third and fourth days. They spent a lot of time having all the kids connect as well and get to know one another. I met with Mike Barker, who’s the director and I was slowly falling in love with the project. A couple of days later, I get a call from my agent and my manager and they’re like, “Hey, so turns out they’re actually canceling your audition.” I said, “What? So anyway, I auditioned, I read the script and I loved it. “I think that I probably belonged in a generation that didn’t have social media.” In her new film, she gets to be. [Netflix](https://stylecaster.com/how-to-change-netflix-region/)’s Luckiest Girl Alive, which is based on the [2015 bestselling book](https://www.amazon.com/Luckiest-Girl-Alive-Jessica-Knoll-ebook/dp/B00UBL1EEE/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?asc_source=web&asc_campaign=web&asc_refurl=https%3A%2F%2Fstylecaster.com%2Fluckiest-girl-alive%2F#038;tag=stylecaster0d-20) of the same name by Jessica Knoll. As an up-and-coming actor with 22 credits already to her name, including Cruel Summer and Tell Me Your Secrets, Aurelia laments the pressure she feels to “have an “I love this song!” she exclaims on the set of her photoshoot with StyleCaster in late September.