Written by Luke Barnes
Summary
The struggles of a young woman, played by Mila Kunis, as she makes her way in the world.
Netflix needs to take a long hard look in the mirror releasing this only a few weeks after Blonde, both films which can be viewed as exploitative and as fetishising sexual violence and female misery. I have read to a degree that some think this film could have done with a trigger warning, or to have not gone as hard as it did, but I would argue that the real issue is that the subject matter wasn’t handled well at all, lacking any kind of grace rather being instead a brute force act of shock. I can understand to a degree the director choosing to do things the way they did to show the true horrors of life for a young woman but at the same time I would argue that this verges into a new form of torture porn along the way.
Additionally, unlike other reviewers I don’t think Mila Kunis was the right lead for this film. Though she does have some acting talent which has been shown more in her recent dramatic work I just don’t think it is strong enough to carry this film. If anything the weakness of Kunis’ acting abilities are only brought to the fore here and from that she is crushed under them.
Moreover, the pace moves so breezily by everything that nothing really has a chance to sink in or to mean anything at all. The film aims for these lofty high art goals of replicating the human condition but it comes nowhere close as the technical failings mean it is hamstrung from the opening minutes, the pacing is truly quite bad being both overly long and rushed at the same time.
Overall, yikes Netflix stop profiteering from other people’s grief and pain. Lets hope this new form of grief induced torture porn ends early so we aren’t subjected to more films like this.
Pros.
It tries to tell an important story
Cons.
It is bleak throughout
Kunis isn’t strong enough to carry it
The pacing is awful
It fixates and fetishizes grief and pain far too much
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Another Millennial Reviewer 