Luckiest Girl Alive Review: Dark Drama, Light on Thrills

I’ll preface this by saying when I first heard of Netflix’s latest book-to-streaming movie adaptation, Luckiest Girl Alive, I thought it would be in the same vein as the Lindsay Lohan + Chris Pine rom-com, Just My Luck. The title of the movie/book screams “girl with a happy life,” and Mila Kunis is no stranger to the rom-com genre.

So, consider me surprised to find out the book is actually a thriller, and the film adaptation’s genres are “dark” and “suspenseful.”

The main problem with the final product is that there’s very little suspense and even less thrill. While the novel has more twists to get the adrenaline pumping, it doesn’t translate to the film at all.

I finally got my hands on a copy of the novel a few weeks before this film hit Netflix, so the source material is fairly fresh. Netflix has been pretty hit or miss with book adaptations lately (think Love & Gelato and The Woman in The Window), and while the overall idea is there in Luckiest Girl Alive, the pacing of the film is all off.

Mila Kunis is undeniably the star power/draw of the film, so it’s not surprising that “older” Ani takes center stage for much of the story. It’s just unfortunate that in doing so, we lose so much of “young” TifAni’s story outside of the darkest plot points.

It’s the structure of the film’s narrative that weakens the plot and decreases the so-called suspense. We learn almost immediately that Ani is a survivor of a school shooting tragedy. The novel builds up with vague references to some dark incident in Ani’s past until the big reveal.

Because of that major style change, the entire film is viewed through a sympathetic lens rather than a suspicious one. In the book, since we don’t find out about the main tragedy until toward the end, there’s a more ominous overtone.

The film does flash back and forth between 30-something Ani and high school TifAni (played by Cruel Summer’s Chiara Aurelia) like in the book. However, the time spent on the actual build-up to the cause of Ani’s trauma in the movie is less than ideal and leaves us scattered.

It doesn’t make sense why TifAni has a friendship with both the high school outcasts and the popular crew.

There’s very little to establish that TifAni is an outcast in her own right. We just get a few references to her scholarship and the visual clue of her mom’s bright red BMW against the other parent’s black and silver luxury cars.

Without spending more time in the high school flashbacks, it’s hard to connect a lot of the little plot points throughout the film. Running into her old high school teacher at her fiance’s business dinner is glossed over in a quick scene, and we barely see them interacting in the past.

Dean accusing Ani of conspiring with Arthur barely makes sense since we don’t see Ani and Arthur interacting much.

Without more of the backstory, Luckiest Girl Alive has a hard time convincing us that Ani could have any involvement with the tragedy, which completely takes the thrill away.

The source material is very heavy and full of potential triggers, so I don’t fault Netflix for using quick cuts to show how hazy TifAni’s sexual assault was while drugged. Chiara Aurelia proved herself a rising star in Freeform’s (similarly dark) Cruel Summer, so she feels underused here.

It just seems like a waste that Kunis gets to narrate Ani’s internal monologue, and Aurelia doesn’t have the same opportunity to add color to young TifAni’s internal struggle. It would have been nice to see more of the immediate aftermath, giving Aurelia more to work with.

Luckiest Girl Alive does handle its heavy material well. Ani in the book is entirely unlikeable. While she has annoying qualities in this adaptation, overall we want to root for her success and healing the same way we root for Cassie in Promising Young Woman.

Though it’s not the most thrilling or suspenseful movie, it achieves its goal of showing a character reconcile the horrific events in her past and get revenge on those who wronged her. The end scene, when all is said and done, is a poignant way of showing how telling your story can positively affect those around us.

It’s by far not the best adaptation Netflix has ever given us, but neither is it the worst. With Kunis and Aurelia at the helm, and featuring decent showings from the supporting cast of Connie Britton, Jennifer Beals, Finn Wittrock, and Justine Lupe, it’s a worthy nighttime watch.

What did you think of Luckiest Girl Alive? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

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Luckiest Girl Alive is now streaming on Netflix.

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