The race of Mila Kunis It has been somewhat erratic. After making herself known with the television show ‘Those wonderful 70s’, her work has not been lacking, but she never finished finding that great success that catapulted her. It is true that she was able to recover from the enormous failure of ‘Jupiter’s Destiny’ with the great success of ‘Bad Mothers’, but it was something that did not have the desired continuity.
Now he’s back with ‘The girl who had everything’adaptation of the novel by Jessica Knoll based on real events experienced by herself that has become Netflix’s new success, reaching number 1 in the vast majority of countries where the platform is available. Unfortunately, what he ends up offering the viewer is a low-key thriller with better ideas on paper than what he ends up executing on screen.
An intrigue that is losing strength
From the first moment of ‘The Girl Who Had Everything’ it is evident that the character played by Kunis is quite special. His professional goals are very clear and he shows great determination to achieve them, but behind that façade of security there is a woman who was involved in a most traumatic event from which she has not yet recovered.
The film jumps many times into the past to show us what happened then, since there are also two connected events that by themselves would have already marked the life of anyone. I won’t go into details about it because ‘The girl who had everything’ plays precisely with the enigma around them to give greater depth to the storybut he never ends up achieving the forcefulness he is looking for with it, either when it comes to illustrating it in images or due to the consequences derived from this today.
It is true that the resource of fractured history is intriguing during the first bars, since it is a nice addition to the fact that the protagonist becomes the narrator, but once the foundations are laid, ‘The Girl Who Had Everything’ never takes off. On the one hand, it is as if Knoll’s own script was incapable of developing that more distinctive touch and instead resorts to a multitude of unnecessary underlining that weakens what should have been a forceful and unceremonious work.
Mila Kunis avoids the collapse of ‘The Girl Who Had Everything’
What ends up remaining in ‘The Girl Who Had It All’ is a vague thriller -it never ends up being very clear what tone it wants to have- and something repetitive that mike barker, a director who had been making only episodes of series like ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ or ‘Fargo’ since 2007, has not been able to straighten it out. Yes, there are isolated moments in which the disturbing is played with relative success, but at the moment of truth they also end up falling on deaf ears.
That does not mean that the inherent force of what he is telling reaches certain viewers, but here the problem is how to count. Many times the mistake is made that because a film tells something important it is already good. That happens here but in terms of dramatic intensity, being aware on many occasions that what he is telling should be much more impressive and not something that could even be the basis for a forgettable tabletop TV movie.
Fortunately, Kunis is quite inspired giving life to Ani, especially during those first few minutes when she has to exhibit overwhelming self-confidence. Then her performance is slightly clouded by some script and approach decisions -the need to maintain the narration in the first person dramatically clouds certain situations-, but the truth is that at all times it is what stands out the most in the show. And luckily, because ‘The girl who had everything’ would have irretrievably sunk if it hadn’t.
In short
What we are left with at the end of ‘The Girl Who Had Everything’ is a frustrating thriller that does not express neither the part of mystery nor its most dramatic component. I have no doubt that with this material a much better film could have been made, and it is a pity that they have not succeeded, since Kunis does have the stature to lead a story of these characteristics.
In Espinof: