Movie Review: Netflix’s The Luckiest Girl Alive
Netflix’s The Luckiest Girl Alive: A Breath of Fresh Air
If you’ve seen the Netflix movie The Luckiest Girl Alive, I’d like to think you enjoyed it. If you haven’t seen it, we recommend you do so before reading this. It has been in the top ten trending movies on Netflix for weeks now.
It tells the story of a young writer who survived a school shooting in high school, and all the events that led up to it. After trying so desperately to suppress these memories, she decided to confront them and finally tell her own version of what really happened.
The Luckiest Girl Alive Plot Summary
Ani Filani, (played by Mila Kunis), or Tifani Filani as she’s sometimes called, is a 28-year-old writer who seems to have it all, including a well-paying job as a writer, and a perfect relationship with a rich fiance. Yet as the story progresses, we see that Ani’s life is not so not perfect after all.
In high school, she earned a scholarship to the reputable Bradley School, a school for rich kids. She made friends with a few of them but was bullied as the financial aid kid. Only one person, a guy named Arthur, stood up for her. Eventually, she started dating one of the popular guys, Liam, whose closest friends were Peyton and Dean.
One night, she went over to their house for a party. She took some alcohol and somehow lost consciousness. Next, she remembered lying on the bathroom floor with Liam on top of her. Seeing that she was bleeding from her vagina, she stood up and tried to get cleaned. Then Peyton came in, he pinned her to the ground and raped her. She tried pushing him off but he was also drunk. He thought she was enjoying it, and he kept kissing her hand instead.
Afterwards, she went into the room to find clean clothes, then Dean walked in. She tried to leave, but he pinned her down and raped her too, ignoring her pleas for him to stop. Eventually, she injured his nose, pushed him off, and ran out to find help. She found their school teacher in a mini-mart, who helped her get cleaned up and spoke to the headmaster. They tried to contact her mum, but Ani refused to open up to her mum and decided not to pursue the matter.
Afterwards, she opened up to Liam, stating that she “felt like she was raped”. Rather than acknowledge what happened, he gaslighted her into apologizing to him for saying that. After hearing that she spoke to the headmaster about it, the three began to taunt her by making fun of her pubic hair. Her friend Arthur defended her and got into a brawl with Dean, which landed him in trouble with the school authorities.
Later, Arthur got angry at Ani for not standing up for herself, stating that the trio had also bullied both him and Ben, and Ben did nothing about it. Eventually, Ben and Arthur took matters into their own hands by coming to the school with guns and shooting the bullies. Arthur placed the gun in Ani’s hand and asked her to shoot Dean, and when she couldn’t do it, he shot him. Immediately, Ani pulled out a knife and stabbed Arthur in the neck, putting an end to the school shooting.
This movie addressed several dark themes which are relevant in society today. Some of them include;
1. Victim Blaming
One of my favourite things about this movie was the ending. After Ani managed to speak up against Dean in her article, she met a random woman on the street who accused her of trying to destroy a good man, saying she hopes she enjoys her “15 minutes of Fame.” Ani’s response was, “go fuck yourself on 5th Avenue”.
This response is apt for a whole lot of reasons. It is for people who think it is okay to blame the victim or try to shame them for speaking their truth. It’s really difficult for a victim, especially a woman, to summon the courage to speak out against a very powerful man.
It was difficult for Ani to speak up against Dean almost 14 years later. He was now Dean Barton, the popular anti-gun rights activist who fought to save lives after he survived a school shooting that left him paralyzed. She was just Ani Finali, a struggling writer who felt she needed to marry a rich man to become a respected person in society.
When a person makes rape allegations, the right thing to do is to be as objective as possible, yet still show empathy. You should listen to both parties and observe how things unfold, not pick a side and attack either of them immediately. Because an accused person is “innocent until proven guilty”, attacking the alleged abuser simply on the word of the alleged victim is wrong, just as it is also wrong to insult, ridicule, or threaten the victim too.
People who do this will say things like, “she wants to ruin his career,” “she wants to bring down a powerful man,” “she’s looking for money,” and “what if she’s lying?” Well, what if she isn’t? Imagine watching your abuser be defended by so many people while you are on the receiving end, getting death threats, slurs, and abusive words from random people.
Accusing someone of telling lies or trying to shame them for speaking up is also abuse. Even saying things like, “your story doesn’t add up” can be disheartening. Sometimes, the story may not necessarily “add up”, but that doesn’t make it less accurate.
Rather than attack the person, you can ask genuine questions to try to understand them. But more importantly, you must show empathy! Even lawyers cross-examining a witness are regulated by certain ethics and principles. Trying to play lawyer by attacking or shaming a person for speaking about their abuse is just mean.
2. Alcohol And Sexual Abuse
Research from the Maryland Collaborative Center on Young Adult Health and Development indicates that alcohol is a risk factor for sexual assault. 1 in 5 cases of sexual assault occurs with alcohol involved.
Alcohol lowers your inhibitions, reduces your ability to focus, and increases your vulnerability. This is why it isn’t safe to consume alcohol in public without a trusted friend around, especially when you’re out partying. Or better yet, do not consume more than you can handle, because even a trusted friend can betray you.
Teenagers should not be consuming alcohol at all, more so when they’re out partying. It makes you accessible to all kinds of predators lying in wait. If Ani had not been out drinking, perhaps she would not have found herself in that predicament. While we pray to never be victims of sexual assault, it is also important to exercise caution and protect ourselves as best as we can.
3. Unresolved Anger
Another prominent theme in the movie is unresolved resentment and anger. Ani was so angry with everyone, including herself, that she changed her entire personality to try to overcome the feeling. She never really had an opportunity to express her anger, sadness, and hurt because no one gave her room to do so, not even her mother.
Before she could process everything that had happened to her at just 14 years old, Dean told everyone that she planned the shooting with Ben and Arthur. He thought she would tell them about the abuse, so he made sure she couldn’t. They had all survived the school shooting, but while her classmates could comfort each other, she spent the last two years of high school alone.
When she became engaged, even her fiance didn’t understand her anger. He felt like her abusers had suffered enough. Two of them were dead and one was in a wheelchair. According to him, “they fucked up” and they had paid for it. But that wasn’t enough to be honest, because there was no actual justice.
All three of them were seen as victims of gun violence, not as the rapists that they were. Ani did not get the acknowledgement she deserved, instead, everyone saw her as the villain and they hated her for supposedly planning the shooting.
When she finally confronted Dean, he kept making excuses for his actions, saying he was young, he was ignorant, he was angry about the paralysis, he was scared she would tell everyone, and so on. He refused to acknowledge or accept his wrongs or show total remorse. He even tried to get her to feel sorry for him because he was in a wheelchair and said that his wife and kids would be disappointed.
When that didn’t work, he proceeded to threaten her. She told him that she was a victim too, but unlike him, she does not take out her anger on innocent people, yet nobody felt sorry for her or defended her. She had finally learned to stand up for herself, and she successfully recorded him admitting that he raped her.
Ben and Arthur were also victims of bullying so they had every reason to be angry, but they carried out their frustrations in the wrong way. Arthur should have respected Ani’s choice of how she decided to handle the matter. He had no right to take lives, or try to force Ani to kill Dean. Self-defence is one thing, but it is another thing to take laws into your own hands and risk other people’s lives.
4. Lack of Support From Loved Ones
Ani’s refusal to confide in her mum turned out to be justified. Her mum was more interested in her reputation, and what people would say. She outrightly said she was ashamed of Ani, and that Ani was not the child she raised.
It’s normal for a mother to be disappointed that her daughter got drunk and went partying late at night. However, you’d expect that she would place her daughter’s well-being above all else. The right thing to do is to listen to the child, take care of her first, and then deal with the disappointment later.
As for Ani’s fiance, he never really knew the kind of person she truly was, because she created a different personality to be the kind of woman he would want. When she came to terms with who she really was and decided to deal with the pain the best way she could, he turned out to be unsupportive as well.
Thankfully, Ani’s boss gave her the push she needed to accept what happened to her, and channel that rage and resentment into something productive. By writing a raw and unpolished version of her experience, she was able to move past the heavy burden that had been weighing her down for years.
Ani put aside the worry of making her mother look bad or the fear of what her fiance and his family would think. She simply expressed herself and leaned on herself for support. It’s nice to get some support from our loved ones, especially after experiencing traumatic events as Ani did. But if they fail to offer support, then that’s on them, not us. It does not make us less or take away anything from our individual experiences.
5. Gun Violence
According to Amnesty International, at least 500 victims die every day from gun violence. The American Public Health Association states that gun violence is one of the leading factors responsible for premature deaths in America. Over 100,000 people die or suffer severe injuries in America every year.
There’s no reason why High school kids should have access to guns. Young people should be trained to work through their emotions and resolve them reasonably, not pick up guns and shoot people so easily. Placing a gun in Ani’s hands and forcing her to shoot her abuser is abuse in itself, especially with Arthur standing there calling her weak.
At the end of the day when she stabbed him, you could see the look of confusion in his eyes. He must have felt like she betrayed him because he thought he was fighting for her, he was on her side, yet she chose to stab him. But he was wrong for choosing to take lives and force her to kill a person just because he wanted it to go that way.
Gun control must be taken seriously to reduce incidents of gun violence. While Dean’s work as an anti-gun activist is commendable, it certainly does not justify his refusal to acknowledge his past misdeeds.
Conclusion
The best thing about this movie is how it navigates dark themes without coming off as pitiful or gloomy. Ani Filani was able to come to terms with all of her emotions, including the anger, hurt, frustration, and occasional aggression she expressed. When she chose to call herself a victim and not a survivor, it was because she acknowledged that she had been unjustly and unfairly treated by everyone around her.
They condemned her without giving her a chance to tell her side of the story, and even her own mother failed her. When the photographer tried to get her to talk about it in the documentary by telling her that she should do it for other women, her response was, “other women would be fine”. This was a defining moment for her, a moment when she chose to tell her story in her own way, at her own time, and for herself, not anyone else.
After everything she had lived through, it just wasn’t fair to impose on her the burden of speaking up for all victims of abuse. What is most important is for her to heal from the pain, and whatever she decides to do with her story should be up to her.
When she eventually chose to tell her story on her own terms, other victims reached out to her to share their experiences, and just how much she inspired and encouraged them. In the end, Ani found herself again, got her dream job, and had a profound impact on other women by sharing her story.
This ending was inspired by the true life events of the writer, and is certainly a befitting ending for our onscreen writer Ani Filani. We hope that this ending inspires more victims around the world to share their stories in their own time, and truly heal from their traumatic experiences.
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