A perfect life is being tested.
On Tuesday, Netflix released the first trailer for luckiest girl alive, an adaptation of Jessica Knoll’s 2015 best-selling debut novel, stars Mila Kunis as Ani FaNelli, who has taken it upon herself to lead an enviable life in New York City. Behind that facade, however, are darker secrets from her past.
They surface when Ani agrees to be interviewed by a film crew for a true crime documentary about how she survived a violent attack in high school, all while preparing for her upcoming “lavish but tasteful” wedding. quickly with her fiancé Luke (Finn Wittrock).
“I’m this close to the life no one thought I deserved,” Ani says of Kunis in the trailer, later explaining, “I’ve carried this horrible thing with me alone for years, and it’s built up this rage inside of me.” I don’t know what I am and what part I’ve made up.”
In flashbacks, Ani is played by cruel summer‘s Chiara Aurelia and Connie Britton complete a complicated mother-daughter relationship. Directed by Mike Barker (The Handmaid’s Tale), the film also stars Scoot McNairy, Thomas Barbusca, Justine Lupe, Dalmar Abuzeid, Alex Barone, Carson MacCormac with Jennifer Beals.
Sabrina Lantos/Netflix
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one year later luckiest girl alive was published, author Knoll, who also wrote the film’s screenplay, revealed in a March 2016 essay that she was gang-raped as a teenager, just like the main character in her book.
“The first person to tell me I was gang raped was a therapist, seven years after the fact,” Knoll began in the emotional essay at the time. “The second was my literary agent, five years later, only she didn’t talk about me. She was talking about Ani, the protagonist of my novel, luckiest girl alive, which is a work of fiction. What I have kept to myself, until today, is that his inspiration is not.”
“I’ve been running and I’ve been ducking and I’ve been dodging because I’m scared,” she continued. “I’m afraid people won’t call what happened to me rape because for a long time no one did.”
Knoll, who also wrote 2019 favorite sister – went on to detail similar events that happened to him in real life, as well as the embarrassment, confusion, and heartbreak that followed. Once she fully understood the truth about what she survived, she said that she was ready to face it.
luckiest girl alive is in select theaters September 30 and streams on Netflix October 7.
If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, please contact the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673) or go to rainn.org.