Luckiest Girl Alive ★★★½

UKRANIAN-born Mila Kunis likes her comedies and she’s mostly pretty good in them.

Unfortunately, she doesn’t make many dramas, which is a shame because she’s usually pretty good in those as well.

I’m talking about her performances in 2010’s Black Swan, Blood Ties (2013) and Four Good Days from 2020.

The same goes for Luckiest Girl Alive, which is the uninspiring title of a 2022 film based on a novel of the same name by Jessica Knoll.

The story, loosely based on experiences from the author’s own life, is specifically set in 2015

Kunis, Finn Wittrock, Scoot McNairy, Chiara Aurelia, Justine Lupe, Thomas Barbusca, Jennifer Beals, and Connie Britton.

Kunis character, Ani Fanelli, initially appears to have it all. She’s 35, lives in New York with her doting fiancé and works as a respected editor at a quality women’s magazine.

In addition to planning the wedding, she’s also in line for a senior promotion, while her fiancé, played by Luke Whitrock, is also in line for a job in London.

But Ani’s past comes careering into view when a film director asks her to be interviewed on-screen in a documentary he is making about a school shooting that Ani survived two decades earlier.

A former classmate and fellow survivor, Dean Barton, is a successful writer and advocate for gun control. He has already agreed to be interviewed but Ani declines, despite vehemently disputing the version of events that Dean will again present.

The less you know about the remainder of the plot the better as we return to not only the day of the shooting but also other events involving Dean and Ani that have haunted her life.

Kunis is very good in portraying a strong person who has been through extraordinary trauma but has chosen not to let it define her life and instead use it to strengthen her character.

The supporting cast is also good, including Scoot McNairy, Jennifer Beals and Connie Britton in small but interesting roles.

I suspect the book is also worth searching out.

Watched on Netflix.