sddavis63

I stumbled upon this movie, and with Lent beginning in just a few days thought it would be worth watching. I was right about that! I, personally, think this was an incredibly well done movie and I found it very thought-provoking and, in the end, quite inspirational. In one sense, it's another "Jesus movie." In this one, Jesus (or Yeshua, as he's known in the movie) is played by Ewan McGregor. I've seen McGregor in a few things, and I really appreciated his take on this extremely difficult role to play. It's the story of Jesus being tempted in the desert. It doesn't follow the biblical narrative, so if you're looking for a movie version of the Temptation stories of the Gospels, look elsewhere. But the theme is accurate and seems to demonstrate Jesus' struggle with the temptations being thrown at him more realistically than mere words on a page can do - even when those words are in the Bible.

In the Gospel story of course, Jesus is driven into the desert by God and spends forty days alone there, being handed three temptations by Satan to test his faith; his commitment to God's plan. The movie begins with Jesus already in the desert, and the theme of the movie (and, in some ways, of the biblical story as well) is illustrated by Jesus' opening words - "Father, are you there?" Of course, God is there, but it's really Satan who becomes Jesus' tester, tempter and tormenter through the experience, calling into question Jesus' relationship to God and God's very character. Intriguingly, Satan is also portrayed by McGregor (kind of a "mirror image" type of experience, I guess.) Satan isn't a terrifying monster as many horror movies portray him/it. Instead Satan is very human - Jesus' constant companion. Jesus also isn't alone in the movie. Instead, he encounters and spends much of his time with a family, through whom many of Satan's temptations come. There are far more than the three biblical temptations - in fact, the biblical temptations don't even really appear - and I found that perhaps even more meaningful than the idea that there were only the three temptations described by the Gospel writers. The entire experience was, for Jesus, a temptation - from beginning to end (literally, as the movie closes, to the end.) Satan's last words in the movie were especially haunting to me - as Jesus approached the end of his journey, Satan says "I'll be with you when the end comes. Just give me a sign and you can come down and stay." (An obvious reference to the cross, which the movie then abruptly shifts to - and I'll say no more about how this ends.)

As I said, I thought this was both thought-provoking and inspirational. The stark desert landscapes added to the feel of the movie and Jesus' interactions with the family brought up a lot of issues. I'm writing as a pastor. I can honestly say that the movie raised at least two broad themes that I want to work into sermons at some point in the future! This isn't what you would call an exciting movie. It's not packed full of action and adventure. And it reflects on faith and issues related to faith, so those who are not of faith probably won't appreciate it as much as I did. But I have struggled to think of something that I could criticize about it - and I've failed to think of anything. A movie that provokes thoughts and reflections and has a personal impact on me is worth, to me at least, a 10/10 - and I rarely rate any movie that highly. It's not that it's perfect (nothing is perfect) - but it hit me in a very real and personal and spiritual way that I truly appreciated. In that sense, a movie can't get any better.

There have been a lot of movies about the Holocaust - and I've seen a fair number of them. There's a point at which you think you've seen it all. You're not dismissive of the subject, obviously, but you just think there's nothing much more that can be said. I approached this with that kind of mindset - and I was wrong. This is gut-wrenching. Not in an especially graphic sort of way because there really isn't much overt brutality shown. But gut wrenching anyway. These were children. 10 - 11 - 12 year old children. Little boys and little girls rounded up by the Nazis for some of their infamous medical experiments. You can't help but wonder. How? Why? The story rotates between testimony from the Nazi accused at trials, to their statements in front of British investigators and to the experiences of the children. And the dates being given were haunting. The children were murdered on April 20, 1945. The Third Reich had less than a month to survive; the children were done away with because they were incriminating evidence. Just horrific.

The story is based on the accounts of sisters Anda and Tatiana (who survived) and focuses on them and their cousin Sergio (who didn't) - all three from Italy but taken by the Nazis. It also revolves around Anton Freud - grandson of the famous psychoanalyst - who served with the post-war British war crimes investigation. Apparently it was originally a mini-series in Germany (and the audio is German, with English subtitles) but I watched it in a movie format and it transitioned well. There's a particularly heart warming scene near the end when the child actors who played Anda, Tatiana and Sergio meet with the real Anda and Tatiana.

I don't want to say that I "liked" this. Because it's horrific. But there's long been Holocaust-denial, and there's rising anti-semitism in many parts of the world, and things like this need to be remembered. I give it 9/10.

Ani Fanelli (played by Mila Kunis - who I'm a fan of since seeing her in "Black Swan" some years ago now) seems to have it all. She's a successful writer for a New York magazine with a chance to go on to something bigger and better, she has a fiancé (Luke, played by Finn Wittrock) who truly seems to love her and support her. Everything seems to be going her way. But there's a dark side to her life as well - something buried deep within her that we see from the beginning as well. In that sense, the movie offers the viewer a deep and rather unsettling look at how past trauma can linger under the surface of even the most seemingly successful and functional people. Ani has strange visions (generally revolving around knives) and you know there's something buried that needs to come out. The movie slowly reveals her story - a modest background, the good fortune (supposedly) of attending an elite private school, and a school shooting in which several students died and one was injured and left in a wheelchair. (There's more, but I won't give it away.) The wheelchair bound student (Dean, played by Alex Barone) grows up to be a writer and gun control advocate - who accuses Ani of not being a victim, but of having played a part in the shooting. Ani is given the chance to confront Dean in a documentary that's being produced, and in many was it's that possibility that becomes the engine that drives the story.

It's a Netflix film (although it apparently had a very brief cinema release before its streaming release.) It's based on a novel of the same title by Jessica Knoll. Although the book is a "novel," it is apparently loosely based on some of Knoll's own experiences as a teenager. The movie uses the standard back and forth type of story-telling - so, sometimes we're in the present, and sometimes we're in flashbacks re-living Ani's past. I thought director Mike Barker did a decent job of blending the two. Kunis is the star as Ani, and she was effective in the role, although I actually think that Chiara Aurelia (who played young Ani in the flashback scenes) had a much tougher role and she performed it very well.

Although not graphic, the film didn't shy away from addressing difficult themes (perhaps even more effective in that way because it really didn't depict Ani's trauma in an overly graphic way) - and the themes are socially relevant. The story kept me engaged, even though as the movie went on there were some issues with pacing. But I wanted to know what had happened to Ani, and I wanted to know how it would affect her life as she came to grips with her past, so it was no struggle at all to stay with this. I wondered a bit about the title. In what way was Ani the "Luckiest Girl Alive"? Perhaps just by surviving the trauma of her teenage years? It's an interesting question to reflect upon. The last scene (set in a train car) seemed a bit strange - as literally every woman on the train seems to be reading the article Ani wrote and we hear through narration their reflections upon it. That just seemed kind of forced to me and not the strongest possible way to end this.

I would call this a really good psychological thriller. I was at first disappointed to learn it was based on a novel rather than a true story - my disappointment being somewhat tempered when I discovered later that the story was, as I mentioned, loosely based on the experiences of the original novel's author. In that sense, I think the reviews I'm most interested in are from women who've survived similar trauma as Ani - and most of them , from what I've seen, rate this movie highly. I certainly think it's worthwhile watching, and I'd rate it as a 7/10.