This article was published on 8/12 and republished on 8/14.
It doesn’t happen all that often, but a new Netflix original movie has arrived with a stellar cast and a 100% Rotten Tomatoes review score from critics. It’s out tomorrow, and seems like it’s worth a watch.
Technically a dramedy, the movie is Don’t Say Good Luck. It’s about Sophia Birenbaum, played by Sunny Sandler, leading her high school musical, though she is “suddenly living with even more drama at home than on the stage.” Not ideal.
The cast here is just wildly talented: New Girl’s Max Greenfield, Brooklyn 99’s Stephanie Beatriz, the legends Steve Buscemi and Jon Lovitz. But a standout may be Yellowjackets’ Melanie Lynskey, taking a break from her cannibal past on that show for a much different role here. I’m not familiar with Don’t Say Good Luck director Julia Hart’s previous work, but clearly she has hit a home run here.
Don’t Say Good Luck will attempt to compete with The Last House, the (quite bad) horror movie that has stayed at No. 1 on Netflix’s top 10 movie list since its release. It also has to contend with a couple of Spider-Man movies. A fairly high-profile project, Don’t Say Good Luck could do well if buzz about the movie spreads by word of mouth.
Here’s what some critics are saying about the film:
- The Hollywood Reporter – “The real gem of this ensemble (as she is in pretty much everything she touches) is Lynskey, who’s never less than completely and utterly present even as Liz increasingly struggles to be.”
- Deadline Hollywood – “Lynskey, an actress who can do no wrong, is exquisite playing a loving parent caught up in her own crisis but doing everything she can to help her daughter against all odds.”
Probably half the reviews cite Lynskey as a standout in one way or another, and I think most are ready for her to move on from Yellowjackets to other significant projects. Right now, however, she has no other projects on the docket. Lynskey spoke about her role in the film on TODAY:
“My whole focus in life is my daughter. I have one daughter, she’s seven, she’s just everything to me. So to play a mother who just loves her kids so much, now I’m getting emotional, it was a very easy, easy thing to jump into. It was probably the easiest work I’ve ever done, honestly. Yeah, no murdering, so that was nice!”
There are rarely any 100% scored original movies on Netflix, so Don’t Say Good Luck certainly appears like it’s one not to miss. You cannot say no to this cast —put Buscemi’s mug on a thumbnail photo and I’m there.
The movie will be available to stream on Netflix Friday, August 14.
Update (8/14): If you were paying attention to two things, first, Sunny Sandler’s last night and second, the production company on the film, Happy Madison, you may have been able to put two and two together. Yes, this is Adam Sandler’s daughter acting in the film. She’s 17 and has been making the rounds on talk shows in order to promote the release of the film. Naturally, her father comes up all the time. Here’s what she shared with Jimmy Fallon:
“When me and my sister were younger, we dressed up in his clothes, before that was popular and cool,” Sunny said. “The big shirts, the shorts. We held Diet Cokes and yelled about the air conditioning being off. And then we jumped in the pool with our socks on because he wears his socks in the pool because he can’t bend to take them off on land.”
This is not Sandler’s first acting role at all. She actually has 26(!) credits to her name, ranging from her father’s Happy Gilmore 2 to You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah. Wait, actually wow, there are a lot of her father’s projects in here. Hubie Halloween, The Do-Over, That’s My Boy, Grown Ups 1 and 2, Jack and Jill and yeah, these go way back to when she was a little kid. Keeping it in the family! Adam Sandler isn’t in this movie, but it is inarguably her biggest role yet, leading a big, perfectly reviewed Netflix production like this. Very impressive.
Corrected, Aug. 13: An earlier version of this misidentified the original Netflix movie, “Don’t Say Good Luck.” It’s a feature film, not a series.
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