[ad_1]
Editor’s Note: The following contains spoilers for Luckiest Girl Alive.
Luckiest Girl Alive is one of the most eloquent films about survivorship in recent memory. It poignantly addresses the internal battle that stems from trauma, specifically the struggle of leading a double life. Unlike many characters that live this secretive lifestyle, main character Ani FaNelli (Mila Kunis) isn’t out to deceive anyone but herself. Now a thriving adult, Luckiest Girl Alive intertwines the suppressed tragedy of Ani, or Tifani’s, past while slowly uncovering how it will affect her future, despite her best efforts. The detailed visual language of the film indicates how severely she is still haunted by an experience that she was never able to properly heal from. Key moments of dialogue and voiceover indicate how deeply she fears letting her two worlds connect. Based on the novel by Jessica Knoll, the author also presents a compelling screenplay that cleverly depicts how Mila Kunis’ character balances two dueling sides of herself.
Ani embodies the experiences of many survivors of abuse who use their ability to compartmentalize their grief as a way to cope. Determined not to let it define her future, she tucks the pain of her trauma away, never to be discovered or, God forbid, interpreted as weakness. While she refuses to confront the emotional damage of her high school years, she is in constant pursuit of an outlet through which she can share her truth after her name is dragged through the mud. This goal is accelerated with the arrival of documentary filmmaker Aaron (Dalmar Abuzeid). After years of drowning out the noise of her past with relentless high performance, both personally and professionally, the documentary of the “most deadly private school shooting in history” taints the blissful weeks leading to her wedding with fury and repressed memory. For years, Ani has channeled this rage into cultivating the irrefutable image that she is happy and successful. Lucky, even. Her pending nuptials to Luke Harrison (Finn Wittrock) and a long-awaited career shift to the New York Times all come together at this pivotal moment to solidify years of hard work. She has her deception down to a science.
Ani Is Ultimately Hiding From Herself
Typically, in these suspenseful stories, we are weary of those who lead a double life as effectively as Ani because they are likely fooling those around them for their own personal gain. It appears that the only person that Ani is trying to outsmart is herself. She has built these walls of perfection in the name of self-preservation. The cracks in the armor begin to reveal themselves the more she is forced to re-assess the details of her rape and the school shooting that followed. From her first conversation with Aaron regarding her role in the shooting, it is clear that these walls have begun to tumble down. In this scene, her boss is reminded that her real name is Tifani, to which she replies “Ani is pithier.” Indeed this version of her is as concise and forcefully excessive as her particular word choice suggests.
This unattainable standard to which she holds herself is ruthlessly reinforced by the people in her immediate circle. Her fiancé Luke is described as just another box on her list of accomplishments that she can pridefully check off. This depiction of her future husband is intentional and noteworthy. Not only does he act as a checkbox for Ani, but he continuously confines her into his own box: his vision of the perfect, acquiescent wife. His character noticeably lacks depth because he doesn’t contribute to Ani’s life in any meaningful way. In fact, he often belittles her aspirations and invalidates her journey toward growth. Ani has done such an excellent job convincing him that she is this picture-perfect woman, that he is shocked and appalled whenever the imperfect remnants of her trauma rears their ugly head. His treatment of her often evokes symptoms of PTSD, as Luke can easily be compared to the boys that attacked her. His coif appearance and social status are a biting parallel to the three boys from her private school days. Luke uses degrading language to shame Ani into the version of her that he deems acceptable. In a flashback to her first weeks at private school, we can observe that the clique of popular boys does the same thing. Upon meeting her, they rebrand her with the nickname “Finny.” Only the boys in the group use this name that doesn’t remotely resemble Tifani, while the rest of her friends call her “Tif.” This butchering of her name foreshadows the way they will soon strip her of her sense of self entirely. The two different versions of her nickname symbolize how the trauma they inflict will soon split Ani into two halves of herself.
A Pattern of Living to Please Others
Later in her life, Luke bolsters this need to sequester her true self in order to be respected and accepted.
Ani’s mother, Dina (Connie Britton) plays an integral role in Ani’s learned behavior to separate herself from her victimhood. Fear of judgment from her mother was the sole reason Ani didn’t pursue legal action against her attackers, and this resentment lingers years later. Dina prides herself on setting Ani up for success and for “putting her in the same room” as men such as her wealthy fiancé. But oddly enough, Dina expresses just as much contempt towards Ani in the weeks leading up to her wedding as she did the day she found out about her sexual assault. Dina anchors Ani to the past, and regardless of which version of Ani she sees, she seems embarrassed by both of them. Though Ani thrives off of Luke’s approval when she can uphold his values, she can never seem to coax that same favor from her mother. Everyone around Ani tries to influence how she feels and how she ought to react. As a result, she is so disconnected from herself that she is unable to gauge her own relationship with her past. Since her teen years, people have tried to quantify her worthiness. They have counted her salary, her weight, boob size, how many days a week she skips lunch, and how much she’s had to drink. It is no wonder she has learned to only value herself by the number of achievements that she can count off on her fingers.
Resilience Against Circumstances
Though Luckiest Girl Alive revolves around sexual violence and violence within schools, it doesn’t do its protagonist a disservice by reducing her to a victim of her circumstances. Albeit a flawed method, Ani’s double life is how she shows resilience against those who tried to use her. The documentary being made about her experiences highlights how Ani’s voice was on track to being distorted through someone else’s lens until she took her power back. She revisits the horrors of her past out of necessity after agreeing to be a part of the film. From that point on, she has a hard time containing her anger now that her wounds are once again raw. When she runs into a teacher from her old school, she reluctantly recollects the role he played in the days following her assault. This encounter makes her more aware of how easily she can deflect those uncomfortable memories. While she and Luke have dinner with Andrew Larson (Scoot McNairy), Ani’s calculated alter-ego takes over to charm the table, like a scene out of Jekyll and Hyde. She publicly commits to a future that Luke envisions for her, one that she is reluctant to accept but that takes her far away from these constant reminders. She concludes the conversation with this haunting thought: “Sometimes I feel like a windup doll, turn my key and I’ll tell you exactly what you want to hear.”
Towards the end of the film, when this line is spoken aloud in a confrontation with Luke, it’s as though she’s been marinating in the disappointment that initially accompanied that statement. It eats away at her until she finally does something about it. This transition from thought to action is the product of her two realities converging. Once tangled between how she wants to be perceived and longing for closure and vindication, Ani’s actions ultimately tell us that the only thing that could free someone from a crisis of self is their own pursuit of fulfillment.
During her documentary interview, her internal monologue contradicts her speech, visions of the past bleed into her present, and she resents telling her story to further someone else’s agenda and play by everyone else’s rules. When she prioritizes her own crusade, she finds peace and self-satisfaction waiting on the other side, feelings she never uncovered while leading a life to please others. She sheds the people that acted as shackles to her grief and confronts her last surviving rapist. When she expresses her anger toward him and he shushes her, she soldiers on with resolve. Luckiest Girl Alive portrays a victim of sexual violence that refuses to live within the confines of her vices, she embraces all sides of herself, her hurt and her determination. She uses her gifts as a writer and her intelligence to reach women with her story on her own terms. Ani frees herself from the life she was determined to have, but never really wanted.
[ad_2]
Source link
Armessa Movie News