Luckiest Girl Alive has received a mixed response from critics, but Mila Kunis is scarily believable in the lead role—delivering another head-turning performance. Here are her five best, picked by Cat Woods.
Luckiest Girl Alive
Since her breakout role as Jackie Burkhart on That ’70s Show, American-Ukrainian actress Mila Kunis has built a solid, versatile portfolio of roles. Often dismissed as a rom-com actress or referred to as Ashton Kutcher’s wife, she’s been underrated for too long. More than 25 years since we met her on screen, Kunis has continually improved her ability to physically transform into characters and convey emotions in both subtle and dramatic ways, as she demonstrates in her new film Luckiest Girl Alive—an adaptation of Jessica Knoll’s bestselling mystery novel.
Kunis is scarily believable as Ani Fanelli: a woman urgently trying to keep her past traumas buried under an unnervingly suave exterior. Superficially she appears to have it all, being a celebrated and eye-wateringly beautiful magazine editor with a handsome fiancé. But her past is full of holes and her idyllic façade is paper-thin once her true identity is revealed—though you’ll get no spoilers here.
Knoll’s book was based on her own experience of extreme violence, and of being conditioned not to talk about it. There is no tip-toeing around the savagery and horror of psychological and physical trauma to women in this film, which has drawn mixed reactions from critics. However, producers knew what they were doing in recruiting Kunis to portray a character who is emotionally damaged beyond what most of us could ever even imagine, in a way that provides powerful pathways into her psyche.
Black Swan (2010)
Kunis gives a magnetic performance as the chain-smoking and malnourished Lily, nearly stealing Black Swan from star Natalie Portman. Lily is a pill-popping and hard-partying ballerina determined to sabotage Portman’s Nina, and who may not even exist beyond Nina’s imagination depending on your reading of the movie.This performance garnered the Marcello Mastroianni Award for Best Young Actor at the 67th Venice International Film Festival, a Screen Actors Guild Award, and a Golden Globe nomination.
Lily’s peak moment comes when she’s performing as Nina looks on from the wings, stricken with envy. “Watch the way she moves…effortless. She’s not faking it,” sneers the production’s director (Vincent Cassel). Kunis, impervious on the rehearsal floor, is pure seduction. She flushes as she sweeps her perfectly glossy hair from her perfectly sculpted face. Effortless, indeed.
Four Good Days (2021)
It’s not rare for Hollywood darlings to play sex workers, drug addicts or alcoholics in arthouse films. But rarely is this task undertaken with the sort of humanity, humility and ugliness that Kunis infused into Molly in Four Good Days—a stark departure from the chiselled beauty she’s recognised for on the red carpet. Her face is creased with age and the furrows of malnourishment and addiction.
The hollows of her eyes suggest years of not sleeping, and her cheeks are scattered with red, agitated sores. Glenn Close plays her mother Deb, who is determined to get her daughter clean. As the twitching, restless, nauseated Molly, Kunis is heartbreakingly fragile. In moments when she looks to her children the way she looks longingly to her mother, you can’t resist her. While media interviewers wanted to talk at length about Kunis’ significant weight loss for the film, it was her gestures and her restraint that proved so compelling.
Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008)
It’s not all malnourished, blemished drug addicts; Kunis can also parlay her sassy humour into rom-com fare. As Rachel Jansen, the Hawaii-based hotel receptionist at Turtle Bay Resort, Kunis takes pity on Jason Segel’s heartbroken Peter. Segel is laugh-out-loud funny from go to whoa, so Kunis really had to bring her A game—and she delivers in spades.
Recently fractured by her own relationship breakdown, Rachel is determined to prove to Peter that he can get through his breakup stronger, happier and—unlike the moment when he was dumped—wearing clothes. If you don’t snort with giggles when Rachel hollers up at Peter, (too afraid to leap off the cliff and into the glittering sea below) “C’mon Peter, I can see your vagina from here!”, then you may need to check for your pulse.
That 70s Show (1998-2006)
The iconic sitcom that premiered in 1998 is where many viewers first saw Kunis on screen. She is droll and sassy as Jackie Burkhart—but also just a teenage girl trying to have a relationship with a boyfriend she needs to constantly mother. The series, which ran for eight seasons, famously introduced Kunis to her now-husband Ashton Kutcher (and both will appear in an upcoming Netflix spinoff series). Wilmer Valderrama’s exchange student Fez falls for the smart-arse, doe-eyed Burkhart and the constant tension is captivating to a Scully and Mulder degree.Will she leave Kelso (Kutcher) for Fez? Will this Kelso-Jackie breakup be their last?
Bad Moms (2016)
Whether or not you agree that Bad Moms was a brilliant concept that ultimately flailed, Kunis prevailed and delivered an excellent performance as an overburdened, ultimately rebellious (bad) mother. She takes revenge upon her cheating, sleazy husband with co-conspirators, Kiki (Kristen Bell) and Carla (Kathryn Hahn). She’s funny, relatable, and she steals the screen whenever she’s on it.
Sandwiched between two actresses who have established their careers in comedy, Kunis had her work cut out to bring the humour on par with her co-stars. Her stand-out moment comes as she runs riot through the supermarket in a trio of fantastically bad moms, slapping a stranger on the butt and guzzling cereal directly from the box.
