WHAT IT’S ABOUT Get a load of this. Mom cuts you out of your inheritance unless you watch a bunch of DVDs (yes, DVDs) she left behind, on which she provides a series of beyond-the-grave instructions for how you must fulfill the childhood dreams you wrote on a bucket list when you were a teenager.
Want your share of that cosmetics company cash? You’d better take a shot at a stand-up comedy open-mic night. Want to keep your high-paying job with that company, which happens to be the family business? Forget it. Go find true love instead. And try a mosh pit, while you’re at it.
Poor Alex (Sofia Carson) finds herself set upon this ordeal by her beloved mother Elizabeth (Connie Britton) in “The Life List,” the Netflix adaptation of a 2013 novel by Lori Nelson Spielman.
MY SAY This is a pretty strange thing for a mother to do to her daughter. In the right hands, it could be fodder for, say, an entertaining horror film.
But “The Life List” is painstakingly safe. It has no conflict, let alone an edge. And it’s about as riveting as a TV screen saver.
Other Alex bucket list items include: play Claude Debussy’s “Clair de Lune.” Learn to drive a car. And, quoting directly from Alex’s magnum opus: “Be a great teacher.” “Help people and make a difference.” “Get a tattoo.”
This is as exciting to watch as it sounds.
Alex grows as a person. She drops her original deadbeat boyfriend, learns some important life lessons, gets swept up in an exceedingly dull love triangle with two personality-free dreamboats, tries out those comedy chops and discovers she’s not exactly the second coming of George Carlin, and more.
Listen, there’s nothing more admirable than being a great teacher. We should all aspire to help people and make a difference.
But the most basic principle of storytelling holds that something out of the ordinary has to happen to characters on screen. There needs to be some reason for the audience to be invested. Movies can’t just regurgitate day-to-day life.
And yet that’s exactly what “The Life List” does. There’s not a single adventurous or otherwise compelling item on the bucket list. When the movie throws in a dramatic wrinkle or two, including a subplot involving Alex’s birth father, it screams of desperation.
The main characters are all sweet and well-meaning, with no serious personality flaws or other weaknesses.
Mom’s motivation is not to somehow torment her daughter — now that would have been more interesting, at least — but to help her help herself.
Alex’s siblings and friends support her in every way they can. Alex wants to be her best self and does all she can to get there.
It’s all so thoughtful and considerate, for everyone but the audience.
BOTTOM LINE Not bored enough? Here you go.
