Movie Night at our home
We were doing our weekend groceries and bought a little more than was on the list, I mentioned with a joke that we were over budget for the weekend and my boyfriend said "movie night it is then!". It ended up by him putting on a random movie, getting distracted while being called for work and me rewinding it to watch the movie from the start. I saw Mila Kunis played in it and I like her movies usually, therefore I gave this one a chance without even checking what it was about. After all, the Luckiest girl alive sounds like a feel good movie, doesn't it?
Trigger warning!
Let me start by the thing that Netflix should have done, give the viewers a proper trigger warning. I will keep my thoughts about that to myself and just say, if you have a history with (sexual) violence, you could get triggered watching this movie. The sexual violence scenes were heavy and hard to watch, even knowing that this is all fake.
The story
From the first moment, it's clear that something happened in Ani FanNelli's past, but it's not exactly clear what and if she's guilty of something happening in the past. She's a writer and has a good career as an editor and is engaged and soon to be wed. But is this life really what she wants? It doesn't help that her fiancé is trying to convince her not to share her personal story when she's invited by a journalist after one of the people from her past is accusing her of being involved in the shooting on her high school.
A documentary is being made
If Ani will not tell her side of the story, people will most-likely believe the person that wrote a book accusing her of being involved. Telling your side is not as easy as it may seem, especially not when the events are truly horrifying and it means you will have to face on of the people that traumatized you. How Ani deals with the invitations to tell her side of the story as well as the triggers that throw her back into the past quite often now that a band aid has been ripped off and a documentary is being made is something I will keep to myself.
Revenge?
There are several moments that I'm watching the movie and expect Ani being involved as a form of revenge. I don't think anyone watching the rape scenes in this movie will not understand that it messes up someone inside. Especially if you are putting away these feelings for many years and a beast inside is growing because of what happened to you. If she's was out for revenge or that the truth is somewhere else, you will have to check out yourself.
A quote to remember
My personal journey of healing started when I decided to write about my past. Therefore, I felt an extra connection with Ani watching this movie as she's a writer too. This quote from her boss is one to remember:
The quote 100% applies to me looking at my years of writing when I needed healing and closure. I wrote as if nobody was going to read it and I was told often that my writings touched people every time I published something. It's hard to do so but very rewarding as people will feel the author's emotions while reading a story. Maybe this was what I needed to hear to start writing like that again.
Does it end well?
I will not give you any spoilers in terms of the ending of "Luckiest girl alive" but I will recommend you to watch it instead. But only if you aren't sensible for triggers of rape scenes, even though these scenes are there only a few times, there are a few other sensitive violent scenes later on as well, which I can imagine can trigger some people. Mila Kunis did a great job acting this role, as well as the actress that played her in her younger years (back then still called TifAni). If you are curious, here's the trailer:
If you saw the movie, feel free to leave a comment with your thoughts!
Thanks for reading!