Directed By Julia Hart

Starring – Sunny Sandler, Melanie Lynskey, Stephanie Beatriz

The Plot – In this coming-of-age dramedy, Sophie Birenbaum (Sandler) is ready for the spotlight as the lead in her high school musical, until suddenly she’s living with even more drama at home than on the stage.

Rated PG-13 for thematic material, some strong adult language, teen drinking and sexual references.

Don’t Say Good Luck | Sunny Sandler | Official Trailer | Netflix

POSITIVES

Considering the level of monotonous mediocrity that persists in typical every week Netflix productions, Don’t Say Good Luck feels like a breath of fresh air exuded from the warmest of hugs, all realized remarkably with a level of maturity and authenticity in the depths of a coming-of-age dramedy that refuses to take any of its meaningful elements for granted along the way. From a creative perspective, the film dissects the messiness and unpredictability of life earnestly, either in the ground-shaking news of its Lynskey-led primary conflict, without the need to feel overbearingly saturated in melodramatics or predictable tactics that feel manipulative towards the integrity of the experience, or even in the unavoidably inevitable changes of Sophie’s teenage relationships, which finds her and a best friend on the crossroads of conflicting priorities that threaten their once inseparable friendship, and while the film’s 90-minute runtime threatens the accessibility and depth of these deviating explorations, the reality is that Hart and fellow screenwriters Laura Hankin and Jordan Horowitz refuse to overlook their broad strokes in conveying the intimately isolated picture of a teenage girl forced to mature practically overnight with the level of responsibilities that she’s presented, particularly within the backbreaking confines of a school play of which she is the lead in. While it seems obvious that at least one of these three writers grew up in stage productions, for the many vocal exercises and feelings of exhilarating nerves that surround Sophie’s timid tenderness on stage, for my money it was those moments of poker face interactions between characters that had me bracing for the boldest punches of devastation that the movie would eventually unload on me, all building towards a third act climax that not only renders triumph in the face of overwhelming adversity for Sophie, but also a sincerely sentimental coda that evokes triumphant inspiration over nerve-shattering tragedy, balancing the beautifully intimate with the tastefully tender for an atmosphere that I simply couldn’t get enough of. Hart’s adverse impulses in direction certainly indulge in periodic samplings of comedic levity, in order to keep the atmosphere enticingly accessible for audiences, and while the film is blessed with an abundance of journeymen comedic supporting actors who would typically be given free range to energetically enact the material in other films, there’s a subdued simplicity to their deliveries that keeps the material from feeling exaggerated or unnaturally earned, instead indulging in this vivid slice of life where every relationship and dynamic conflict feel simultaneously familiar and unique, all at the same time. Of those vital relationships, the film obviously leans the heaviest into the valuable bond between Mother and Daughter, exuded seamlessly here by not only a charmingly affectionate dynamic of lived-in chemistry between Sunny Sandler and Melanie Lynskey, but also with ample experience and conversational insight spent throughout the movie’s first half, supplanting this irreplaceable comfortability that cohesively gauges the elder’s incredible value on the youth, without anything transparently revealing in the dialogue that spells out that worth to override the interpretability of their disarming body language and connective honesty around one another. This obviously builds the stakes to such a combustible level towards Sophie’s overarching dilemma, where her desire to perform exceptionally feels threatened by her own understandable disconnect over the production, but beyond that defines Sophie’s empathetic resiliency in ways during the second half that forces her to grow with that dependency feeling less and less significant within the film’s evolution, conjuring that rare but effective achievement since 2013’s The Spectacular Now, where the actions of the teenage characters reflect those of the deconstructive world surrounding them, without feeling sacrificially selfish towards condemning their characterization. Another commonality that it shares with that aforementioned film is that cinematographer Bryce Fortner evokes many of the same mature aesthetic choices for visual tones to the movie’s presentational pallet, that seamlessly fits such a somberly stirring experience that constantly remains in-check with its own emotionality. He masters this artistic impulse while featuring such a distinctly soft and earnestly endearing toned texture that clearly feels resonant of Sophie’s introspective emotionality externalized, offering an inescapable cloud of gloominess over the everyday routine of this family, without feeling artificially saturated on the integrity of the imagery. As for the theater kids in the audience, being that the film centers around the high school production of Waitress, there are a couple of musical performances legitimately sung by Sandler, bearing such a lyrical relevance to the troubling chaos of her own life, which in turn allows the play to feel personally therapeutic to the kinds of angst and remorse that she keeps bottled up inside. The realities of such a risky proposition are that Sandler herself is the solidly exceptional kind of trained singer whose emphasized feelings and transparent expressions attach such a connectively subliminal language to the interpretive insight of the audience, featuring just enough palpable nervousness to surmise realism to the character’s own inexperience performing among her peers, which in turn mirrors Sandler’s own inexperience accordingly. This feels like the right time to transition into the perfection of the performances from such a mesmerizing ensemble, but particularly Sandler and Lynskey, who elevate the material with vulnerably resilient turns that confront the inevitability of grief with contrasting exercises of denial. Sandler brings a refreshing maturity and unforeseen stoicism to Sophie that bears the brunt of a barrage of bad news throughout, enacting circumstantial loneliness to a time that should be defined by triumph, without any of the self-indulging depressive tendencies that would make her character feel self-centered in the objectives of her focus. As good as Sandler is here, it’s undeniably Lynskey’s showcase, as she not only attains heartbreaking resonance throughout an emotionally restrained performance that requires her to stay strong for her family, with the subtlety of make-up schemes eventually transforming her before our very eyes, but also a woman alone in reality who is wearily weathered from the uphill climb of a winless battle, feeling as close to Oscars gold for Happy Madison productions as they’ve ever before or are likely ever again to be.

NEGATIVES

While my critiques about the film are minimally compromising to the movie’s overall integrity, there are notable instances of contrivance and continuity errors to the movie’s creativity that makes some of the sequencing of scenes a bit of a far-stretch to buy without disbelief, such as the initial set-up to the conflict involving Sophie’s father (Played by Max Greenfield) constantly butt-dialing her. When the first instance materializes, it’s used as nothing more than an out-of-touch gag about the elder’s complete lack of awareness, but as it eventually transpires it begins to relay important information in what can only be generously described as telegraphically convenient and unconvincing, wasting away one of the films few emotionally overwhelming moments for a set-up in structure that keeps the audience from ever experiencing a sit-down conversation between Sophie and her mother, despite them feeling like best friends throughout the film. As for continuity errors, there are two such instances where the sloppiness of the editing overlooks visual language to the interpretation of the audience, with one such moment pertaining to the school setting up a technological passage for Sophie’s mom to watch her stage play preparation from a laptop camera. During the scene, Sophie screws up a line read, and the director, While aiming the camera directly at her, in order to talk directly to Sophie’s mom, walks away while the camera still remains in that angle, only in the next shot to somehow be turned back around once more to be aimed at the stage. If this is meant to convey that the teacher switched the angle abruptly before she left the scene, then the editing does an awful job of conveying this intention, as nothing about the placement of her hands articulates her even capable of this possibility, but at the very least there’s not enough attention paid to some glaring incoherence, and it stands as the singular instance where the movie’s Netflix rendering eventually catches up to it. Besides this, my only other problem with the script pertained to the usage of Sophie’s visiting grandparents (Played by Bebe Neuwrith and Steve Buscemi), who essentially attain little meaningful value to the script’s integrity, and basically just serve as another interchangeable piece to interact frivolously off of Sophie. While the performances from Neuwrith and Buscemi are memorable enough for what little is asked of them, they dissipate almost as quickly as they’re introduced into the fray, with so little interactive value to the ins and outs of the daily household, which sacrifice the helplessness of the family’s deterioration without actually replacing it without any kind of visual evidence to their salvaging, feeling nothing more than glorified cameos for Adam Sandler to once again allow his friends to keep their bills paid.

OVERALL
Don’t Say Good Luck is a quaintly inviting and weepily bittersweet family dramedy about the messiness of life, without anything that replicates the manipulative tendencies of meandering melodrama before it, that trivialize the trauma over the tenacity of those forced to pick up the pieces once more. With substantially stimulating turns from Sunny Sandler and Melanie Lynskey, as well as an authentically honest center of heartily-enacted creativity, the film is able to overcome some of those periodic instances of lazily enacted indulgences, cementing a somberly stirring triumph for Julia Hart, who breaks a leg by leaving it all on stage.

My Grade: 8.3 or B+