Luckiest Girl Alive

"Luckiest Girl Alive" revolves around the perfect life of Ani Fanelli, a writer at a popular women's magazine, engaged to a loving, preppie, financially.

The weight of the past was lifted from her shoulders, and she was free from the guilt that consumed her. Ani knew that she was on financial aid and that her life could go astray if she spoke about the gang rape. Her mother got her a lawyer when she was in school and silenced her before she could ever confide in her what had happened that night. She decided she wanted to be that woman in life, and she went to extremes to be her. Her mother had dedicated her life and money to her daughter’s education, and the fact that she attended a party and consumed alcohol, putting in line all that her mother had sacrificed, would make her furious. Instead, she even apologized to Liam, who was disappointed to learn that Ani was calling the events of the night gang rape. He took her to his residency and requested that she inform her mother, but she refused. When she saw Dean enter the room, she tried to make some excuse to leave, but he held her down and raped her. After Peyton left, Ani managed to stand up and tried to walk, but the boys would not let her escape. She had passed out, and when she came to her senses, she remembered her classmate Peyton making out with her. She was lying on the bathroom floor, unable to stop what was being done to her body. Everything around her was, in a way, pushing her to the edge.

Since the release of Luckiest Girl Alive, Mila Kunis has received positive reviews. The book's author and the film's screenwriter is Jessica Knoll.

The views expressed here are that of the respective authors/ entities and do not represent the views of Economic Times (ET). The movie's ending will leave anyone with nagging questions, but do we really need to get a second part? Her acting is captivating, and the audience will love it. The movie will probably follow the same path. [Jessica Knoll](/topic/jessica-knoll)is the book's author and the movie's screenwriter. Will we see more of Mila Kunis in this one-of-a-kind role?

If you finish watching Netflix's Luckiest Girl Alive without feeling as angry as Ani, you didn't watch it right.

It offers a career-best performance from Mila Kunis and isn’t afraid to throw salt in two giant wounds that can’t and won’t heal until we treat them with the seriousness they demand. Ultimately, the movie is a series of punches to the gut, most of which you never see coming. You never know what she’s going to do or say, and once the movie starts wrapping up and makes the core of her behavior clear, you fully understand and relate to the character. On the other hand, men get the benefit of the doubt, excuses are handed to them on a silver platter, and their entire existence is perceived as nuanced – and you definitely can’t pin them to a single mistake in life, because they are much more than that. Not only is this explicitly stated in a flashback by one of Ani’s teachers, but you constantly hear Ani's voiceover contradicting a lot of what she does and says onscreen. Based on a New York Times best-selling novel by author Jessica Knoll (who also pens the script), Luckiest Girl Alive tells the story of a magazine writer who’s aiming to make it to the top rankings of the writing world.

'Luckiest Girl Alive,' an adaptation of the 2015 book, is out now on Netflix. Its ending changed, but the powerful core of the story remains.

“I like that we looked at the year that followed me writing the book and writing my essay and the reaction to it and going on a TV show to talk about it.” While Knoll did change the ending of the film to make it more true to her own life, she was aided in doing so by Mila Kunis, who plays Ani with a haunted tenacity. The liberation of sharing her story encouraged Knoll to adapt the novel into a movie herself—not always typical for authors when their work is optioned. (Later, her mother also rejects this reality, making it nearly impossible for Ani to report the crimes.) Like Gone Girl, Luckiest Girl Alive dissects crime, gender, and class, [reassembling femininity](https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/a-guide-to-millennial-femininity/) through a contemporary lens. After the essay, readers flooded social media with messages of support and thanks to Knoll for coming forward. “What sets this novel apart is the author’s ability to snare the reader from page one, setting the tone for a completely enthralling read as the secrets are revealed.” She’s on edge, talking with an independent [documentary](https://time.com/6218901/queer-for-fear-horror-documentary/) filmmaker about a school shooting that unfolded here two decades ago—and the accusations surrounding it. “But when we reward women for showing their full range of humanity, warts and all, when we give their struggles weight, we allow for the possibility that their flaws and stories can endear, inspire and move us, just like those of men.” Written in the first person, the book itself is predominantly fictional. “You are not the daughter that I raised.” Its ending has changed, but the powerful core of the story persists.

A hollow adaptation of Jessica Knoll's 2015 novel centers on a woman whose perfect life is corroded by past trauma.

Aurelia is impressive as a teenager reeling from shame and bristling at pressure to report from her English teacher (Scoot McNairy) and bullied friends Arthur (Thomas Barbusca) and Ben (David Webster). The young TiffAni (Chiara Aurelia) is a nondescript teen: interested in English, embarrassed by her gauche, middle-class mother (Connie Britton), down to party. The cracks appear from the start – shopping with Luke for wedding registry knives, Ani imagines them dripping in blood – and widen when a documentarian approaches her to tell her side of a tragic story. [Where the Crawdads Sing](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2022/jul/12/where-the-crawdads-sing-review-daisy-edgar-jones), another adaptation of a literary smash about a jagged female protagonist tapped by Reese Witherspoon. Many of the movies’ problems are book problems, made worse, in the case of Luckiest Girl Alive, by decisions to sand down the novel’s more uncomfortable psychology and graft the ending on to the #MeToo movement. It’s of the time for a mid-2010s literary hit, but also seems to anticipate the 2022

Ani FaNelli (Mila Kunis) sits in front of stained glass windows in her former high school, the private and prestigious Bradley School in suburban Philadelphia.

“The knee-jerk reaction is to dismiss Ani as vain and vapid,” Knoll told the New York Times. “One woman’s carefully orchestrated, perfect life slowly cracks to reveal a dark underbelly in Knoll’s knockout debut novel,” read the review in Publishers Weekly. Luckiest Girl Alive, an adaptation of a 2015 book by the same name, releases on Netflix on Friday. “You are not the daughter that I raised.” “Luckiest girl alive right here.” “Not everyone has that.”