MOVIE REVIEW: Luckiest Girl Alive; the book was great, but the movie could have been a lot more

Mila Kunis stars as women’s magazine editor Ani FaNelli, who seems to have the perfect Manhattan life in the perfect apartment with the perfect fiancé (Finn Wittrock).

That is, until a true crime documentarian approaches Ani to find out what really happened at her prestigious high school all those years ago that lead up to the deadliest private school shooting in American history. “Luckiest Girl Alive” is based on Jessica Knoll’s bestselling 2015 novel of the same name.

In Luckiest Girl Alive, its points about rape and privilege are both dead-on and extremely personal to screenwriter Jessica Knoll, here adapting her own novel—one she initially claimed was fiction, but eventually admitted was based on true events that happened to her.

There are so many relatable details and none of them are handed to the audience with a heavy-hand, we are led to learn slowly and brutally at times as Ani grows through telling her story. The last few minutes of the movie are hollow and empty and I can't help but chalk that up as a reflection of the inherent hollowness of how we tend to have discussions like these in social media these days. Overall, this was a consistently riveting experience and told a story that many will resonate with.

A great take on the experience of women who have been assaulted while also delivering an interesting story. I found myself checking how many more minutes were left in the movie, just to be sure the antagonist was going to face consequences.

The book was great, but the movie could have been a lot more. It finds easy solutions and wraps up quite smoothly to be even considered realistic.