WEIRDLAND: Luckiest Girl Alive (Mila Kunis), Promising Young Woman (Carey Mulligan), Andy Samberg

Wednesday, February 24, 2021

Luckiest Girl Alive (Mila Kunis), Promising Young Woman (Carey Mulligan), Andy Samberg

If she wasn’t already, Mila Kunis is now the “Luckiest Girl Alive,” signing on to star in the film adaptation of the best-selling novel for Netflix. Kunis stars as Ani Fanelli in the upcoming film, based on Jessica Knoll’s 2015 New York Times best-selling thriller about a New York magazine editor whose “meticulously crafted life” is upended when a crime documentary forces her to relive the shocking truths of a devastating incident from her teenage years. The “Bad Moms,” “Black Swan” and “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” star will also produce the project under her Orchard Farm Productions banner. The film is being shepherded by producers Bruna Papandrea and Jeanne Snow for Made Up Stories and Erik Feig and Lucy Kitada for Picturestart, the latter of which will oversee the production. Papandrea and Feig have been attached to produce “Luckiest Girl Alive” since they acquired the rights to Knoll’s best-seller novel in 2015. 

Novel Spoilers: The plot twist is that you don't know if Ani has been telling us a true story or if she actually did orchestrate and participate in her school shooting. That is why the police officer sarcastically called her The Luckiest Girl Alive. Because you would have to be lucky to survive a horrific murder spree that killed all your enemies and you escape without a scratch. You really think Arthur just offered her the gun without her being in on it? You really think she could have overpowered big Arthur the mass murderer without him thinking she was his friend? There is a good chance her prints are on the gun because she shot Dean, who had assaulted her sexually. It's the classic twist of the unreliable narrator. Knoll is adapting the screenplay and will serve as an executive producer on the film, directed by Mike Barker. Source: variety.com

Cassie’s escapades are ultimately self-destructive, and Promising Young Woman becomes as much about retribution as the difficulty of moving on after trauma. We can thank Carey Mulligan for helping to bring such emotional weight to Fennell’s weird scripted material. Mulligan connects Cassie’s strength with her vulnerability; there’s a rawness and pain that belies the anger of her performance. She nails Cassie’s unhinged and unhealthy state of mind in a key sequence, scored to Wagner’s darkly epic piece “Liebestod” from Tristan and Isolde, when she attacks a jerk’s pickup truck with a crowbar. While audiences might initially enjoy watching her smash the guy’s windshield, the camera pulls back to reveal Cassie as a wounded and solitary individual. The romance seems a bit of a box to check, at least initially, but Burnham is quite charming, and the writing at the end of their first date scene is so precise and so well observed, it’s sort of startling. Mulligan and Burnham have a sweet, unforced chemistry; you’re really pulling for them, which is sort of cruel (but effective). Promising Young Woman builds to a truly shocking climax that delivers Fennell’s themes with a dark and twisted sense of humour—and justice. It’s a clever and unexpected turn in a film full of surprises. Cassie's ending is not happy, but it's heroic. And the end credit music is a song called “Last Laugh,” which may feel victorious. Source: theplaylist.net

Kaiser (Celebitchy): I ordinarily ignore Andy Samberg around here. It’s not a judgment on him at all–I think he’s incredibly cute and very funny, in a goofy-hot-boy-that-I-would-loved-in-college way. Anyway, I usually ignore him because I guess I think that no one else is that interested in him. Because I rarely–if ever?–pay attention to Andy Samberg at a gossip-level, I was pleasantly surprised by his Men’s Journal cover story. Did you know that Andy is 42 years old? Did you know that he’s been married to indie singer Joanna Newsom since 2013? Whom he started to date in 2008. Before Joanna, the only dating rumors about Andy were with Natalie Portman and Kirsten Dunst around 2006, according to Star magazine. "Star magazine exclusively reveals that Kirsten Dunst, 23, is dating Saturday Night Live funny man Andy Samberg, 27. On March 20, the two were seen getting cozy at Hollywood’s uber-trendy Hotel CafĂ© during a Jose Gonzalez concert. Goodbye Jake Gyllenhaal, goodbye Josh Hartnett and goodbye Tobey Maguire. Kirsten has lucked out with Andy. An eyewitness says he is quite the gentleman! There was no way Kirsten was getting back together with Jake Gyllenhaal." 

Did you know that Andy Samberg and Joanna Newsom met when he attended incognito one of her concerts and wrote her a love letter? He said Joanna was his "favorite person in the world." They have a little daughter and they’ve never released their daughter’s name publicly, and Andy still won’t refer to his daughter by her name in the media. Andy says "the birth of my daughter was the best moment of my life." This Men’s Journal piece also quotes several of his female co-workers, and they all are like “he’s a really woke ally to women.” The Mad Men/Don Draper spoof that Andy Samberg performed in the 67th edition of the 2015 Emmys was a perfect example of having the right instinct to start a great spoof and then just drive it off the rails. Jon Hamm confessed having felt mortified in a good way.

-Did you have a personal preference when it comes to breakups? Have you been usually the dumper or the dumpee?

-Andy Samberg: I’ve had my share of both. Actually, I don’t feel I’ve ever dumped anyone. It’s never been, “You know what? I’ve decided I don’t like you.” It’s been usually about the circumstances. I had a girlfriend in college, then I transferred because I wanted to go to film school, and the long distance made our relationship impossible. Things like that tended to happen to me. Not that I haven’t had some brutal breakups in the past. One time I was dating an actress and she told me, “Hey, I thought I was going to be on location for a film shoot for the next six months and now it looks like I won’t be, so we should break up.” I was like, “Okey dokey. I can tell I was really important to you.”

-You were voted the class clown in your high school. Did that title come with bragging rights?

-Andy Samberg: Remember, I went to Berkeley High, and being voted the best at anything was not something you bragged about. I had a friend who was six-five, superbuff, the blonde quarterback. We all made fun of him for being the quarterback. Berkeley is the inverse of the rest of America. We’d be like, “Oh great, you’re the quarterback. How clichĂ©. We get it, you’re so handsome and talented.” Nobody got more ripped on than the quarterback at our high school. Source: celebitchy.com

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