After years of waiting, the film adaptation of Jessica Knoll‘s bestselling novel Luckiest Girl Alive is finally headed to Netflix.
Produced by and starring Mila Kunis as TifAni “Ani” FaNelli, the film centers on a woman who appears to “have it all.” However, she is forced to confront a devastating secret from her past when she is interviewed for a true crime documentary. “Determined once and for all to silence the whispers of suspicion and blame, Ani must weigh her options carefully, when telling the whole truth could destroy the picture-perfect life she’s worked so hard to create,” the Netflix synopsis teases.
Luckiest Girl Alive became an instant bestseller when it was released in 2015, and many women connected to its themes of identity and trauma. Writing the book was therapeutic for Knoll, who later revealed that much of what happens to Ani was based on her own experiences with sexual assault and bullying.
“It really killed me to see the looks on these women’s faces when I would say, ‘Oh no, you know, I just made it up,’ and I just never wanted to see that look on anyone’s face again,” she told the Today show in March 2016.
Referencing a letter she received from a 55-year-old survivor, Knoll continued: “I just thought, what a horrible thing to have carried that with you for 40 years. And I just hope no one has to do that ever again. I hope that more people feel compelled to share their stories and to talk about what’s happened to them and to know that they have nothing to be ashamed of.”
Knoll dedicated the book to her fellow survivors, writing, “To all the TifAni FaNellis of the world, I know.”
Adapting Luckiest Girl Alive has been a labor of love for Knoll, who also wrote the screenplay based on her book. “This has been six years of relentless rewriting, rejections, studio changes, and torturous stretches of stagnation,” the author wrote via Instagram in February 2021. “I am SO proud of the fact that Mila Kunis read the 63rd draft of my script and was like yeah, I get this girl, and so grateful for her shrewd third act notes that helped me take the 64th draft into another stratosphere.”
She concluded: “And I am SO grateful to team Luckiest Girl Alive who never gave up on this project and fought so hard to get us to this point.”
Keep scrolling to see everything we know about the long-awaited film adaptation of Luckiest Girl Alive:
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