A picture-perfect life is being put to the test.
On Tuesday, Netflix debuted the first trailer forLuckiest Girl Alive, an adaptation ofJessica Knoll’s 2015 bestselling debut novel starringMila Kunisas Ani FaNelli, who has curated an enviable New York City life for herself. Behind that facade, though, are darker secrets from her past.
“I am this close to the life no one thought I deserved,” Kunis' Ani says in the trailer, later explaining, “I’ve carried this horrible thing with me alone for years, and it has built up this rage inside of me. I don’t know what’s me and what part I’ve invented.”
Mila Kunis inLuckiest Girl Alive(2022).Sabrina Lantos/Netflix
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A year afterLuckiest Girl Alivewas published, author Knoll — who also wrote the film’s screenplay — revealed in a March 2016 essay, that she wasgang-raped as a teen, much like her book’s main character.
“The first person to tell me I was gang-raped was a therapist, seven years after the fact,” Knoll began the emotional essay at the time. “The second was my literary agent, five years later, only she wasn’t talking about me. She was talking about Ani, the protagonist of my novel,Luckiest Girl Alive, which is a work of fiction. What I’ve kept to myself, up until today, is that its 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 scared people won’t call what happened to me rape because for a long time, no one did.”
Netflix
Knoll — who also wrote 2019’sThe Favorite Sister— went on to detail the similar events that happened to her in real life, as well as the shame, confusion and heartache that followed it. Once she fully understood the truth about what she survived, she said she was ready to confront it.
Speaking toNetflix’s TUDUM, Knoll explained of the movie, “There was so much of my own story and experience embedded in this character. It was really important to me that I be the one to tell it.”
Luckiest Girl Aliveis in select theaters Sept. 30 and streaming on Netflix Oct. 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 torainn.org.
source: people.com
