See Mila Kunis Give a Powerful Performance as a Woman with Dark Past in 'Luckiest Girl Alive' Trailer

Mila Kunis stars in the adaptation of Jessica Knoll's bestselling novel Luckiest Girl Alive, streaming on Netflix Oct. 7

A picture-perfect life is being put to the test.

On Tuesday, Netflix debuted the first trailer for Luckiest Girl Alive, an adaptation of Jessica Knoll's 2015 bestselling debut novel starring Mila Kunis as Ani FaNelli, who has curated an enviable New York City life for herself. Behind that facade, though, are darker secrets from her past.

They bubble to the surface when Ani agrees to be interviewed by a true-crime documentary film crew about surviving a violent attack in high school — all while preparing for her fast-approaching "lavish but tasteful" wedding to fiancé Luke (Finn Wittrock).

"I am this close to the life no one thought I deserved," Kunis' Ani says in the trailer, later explaining, "I've carried this horrible thing with me alone for years, and it has built up this rage inside of me. I don't know what's me and what part I've invented."

In flashbacks, Ani is played by Cruel Summer's Chiara Aurelia, and Connie Britton rounds out a complicated mother-daughter relationship. Directed by Mike Barker (The Handmaid's Tale), the film also stars Scoot McNairy, Thomas Barbusca, Justine Lupe, Dalmar Abuzeid, Alex Barone, Carson MacCormac with Jennifer Beals.

LUCKIEST GIRL ALIVE. Mila Kunis as Ani in Luckiest Girl Alive
Mila Kunis in Luckiest Girl Alive (2022). Sabrina Lantos/Netflix

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A year after Luckiest Girl Alive was published, author Knoll — who also wrote the film's screenplay — revealed in a March 2016 essay, that she was gang-raped as a teen, much like her book's main character.

"The first person to tell me I was gang-raped was a therapist, seven years after the fact," Knoll began the emotional essay at the time. "The second was my literary agent, five years later, only she wasn't talking about me. She was talking about Ani, the protagonist of my novel, Luckiest Girl Alive, which is a work of fiction. What I've kept to myself, up until today, is that its inspiration is not."

"I've been running and I've been ducking and I've been dodging because I'm scared," she continued. "I'm scared people won't call what happened to me rape because for a long time, no one did."

Luckiest Girl Alive Poster Art
Netflix

Knoll — who also wrote 2019's The Favorite Sister — went on to detail the similar events that happened to her in real life, as well as the shame, confusion and heartache that followed it. Once she fully understood the truth about what she survived, she said she was ready to confront it.

Speaking to Netflix's TUDUM, Knoll explained of the movie, "There was so much of my own story and experience embedded in this character. It was really important to me that I be the one to tell it."

Luckiest Girl Alive is in select theaters Sept. 30 and streaming on Netflix Oct. 7.

If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, please contact the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673) or go to rainn.org.

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