I have a soft spot for Mila Kunis because she has a very interesting past dating back to her time on That 70's Show where she duped the producers into thinking that she was 18 when she in fact, was not. It also doesn't hurt too much that she is really easy on the eyes and I think she is one of the most attractive women in Hollywood. She doesn't get her chance very often to actually star in films and the few times that she has achieved this on any meaningful level they were most often major flops. She is considered a rather risky investment by movie studios so I am pleased that she is finally starring in a film that is actually quite good.
The major plot here is that Ani (Kunis) is a work-driven journalist who is kind of displeased with the fact that she has been relegated to puff-pieces for a magazine and mostly her work consists of writing about how to give the best blowjobs. She wants more serious pieces but doesn't really know how to climb the journalistic ladder in the dying industry that is print media.
She is also getting married soon and this is outlined in the first few minutes of the film so no, that is not a spoiler. What could be a spoiler is something that comes together as the film goes on so I will intentionally be vague about it: She has a rather haunting past and was famous for the wrong reasons when something went terribly wrong in a tragedy at her high school.... I'll just leave it at that.
She changed her name in order to conceal this part of her past but it ends up coming to the forefront and when it does, it starts to affect every aspect of her life in a mostly negative way.
The interesting thing about how this story is told is that instead of trying to CGI Mila into the scenes where she is meant to be 16 years old, they used an entirely different actress I've never heard of named Chiara Aurelia. While Kunis is definitely the top-billed actress of the film, I would say that Aureila is the real star in this movie. Her emotional portrayal as young "Ani" who is actually named Tiffany, is spot on. She captures the emotions associated with the politics of high-school perfectly and even though I generally don't care for young actors or actresses, she absolutely nails her role.
They do an excellent job jumping back and forth in time and only a tiny bit of the film seems a bit corny or condescending. At some points in the film they do this whole "everyone who is not a New Yorker is a country bumpkin idiot" sort of thing that kind of annoys me but at least they keep it brief. I don't know if you have ever met people from NYC but this sense of superiority and attitude is kind of a real thing so maybe that is why they did it.
Teenage dramas do not interest me in the slightest but they managed, possibly because that is not the main story, to not chase me off with the overly dramatic portrayal of teenage life. If anything, I think they shed some light on a more realistic version of what actual teenage life is like, rather than trying to make it appear too far-fetched to ever be something that actually happens.
Should I watch it?
That trailer does an excellent job of getting you interested in the film without giving really any of the major parts of the story away so go ahead and watch it without fear of spoilers. If that trailer tempts you to want to watch the movie then you will almost certainly enjoy it because it is a good representation of the type of artistic approach that they use throughout the entire film. It is a rarity that I can watch a movie from start to finish without ever looking at my phone but the way in which they reveal the major aspects of the storyline in the order that they do is just done wonderfully and I remained entertained the entire way through the film. Actually, when it was over I wanted more, and this is extremely rare for me. This is one of the only good films on Netflix right now so I give it one of my most heartfelt recommendations of 2022.
