Luckiest Girl Alive (2022)

Directed by Mike Barker. Starring Mila Kunis, Finn Wittrock, Chiara Aurelia, Justine Lupe, Thomas Barbusca, Dalmar Abuzeid, Jennifer Beals, Finn Wittrock, Scoot McNairy, Carson MacCormac, Connie Britton, Alex Barone, David Webster, Isaac Kragten, Gage Munroe. [R]

Intensely off-putting, misguided “survivor story” makes one bad decision after another, sabotaging what could have been a noteworthy performance from leading lady Kunis. She’s Tifani (“Ani”), a magazine editor who has spent the last decade-plus reinventing herself into a social climber chasing the superficial upper-class ideal of a “perfect life” in response to traumatic experiences she suffered as a private school student. She’s understandably bitter and defensive, but the blistering sarcasm of her thoughts curdles into smugness because of her shallow obsessions borne from her “poor scholarship girl” past, and lest it be assumed to be a stylistic device entirely divorced from the main story, at one point, she actually pulls a Homer Simpson and accidentally speaks her inner thoughts out loud. Writer Jessica Knoll also penned the source novel, but it’s unclear if it was her guiding hand or director Barker’s decision to turn Ani’s horrific past incidents—a gang rape and a school shooting—into lurid exploitation, the camera leaving virtually nothing to the imagination, and then trivializing the events into gimmicky dramatic showdowns in flashback and present day (a documentarian approaches her about telling her story and meeting with one of the shooting survivors who not only previously raped her but also spread rumors that she has in cahoots with the shooters). The supporting characters are almost uniformly one-dimensional, and the unnatural dialogue they spout inevitably serves to either reinforce the damage inflicted upon Ani for years, or spell out a hard truth she needs to confront, including a fabricated rant from boss Beals near the end. A fantasy mired in shock value and pat solutions, and borderline-infuriating in its dishonest execution; the luckiest girls (or boys) alive will stay away. Kunis also co-produced.

31/100