'Don't Say Good Luck' showcases Sunny Sandler, but Melanie Lynskey makes it shine

The value of parental enactment goes meta successful Julia Hart’s “Don’t Say Good Luck.” The YA philharmonic drama, which premieres Friday, pays homage to philharmonic theater, unconditional maternal emotion and the family-hour TV, er, Netflix movie. In a scenery littered with teenage dysfunction, “Don’t Say Good Luck” is simply a moving statement for aspirational television.

And with a prima whose celebrated begetter serves arsenic producer, it‘s an admonition to the word “nepo baby.”

We conscionable mean kid Sophie Birenbaum (Sunny Sandler) arsenic she anxiously prepares for a time that volition see auditioning for her precocious school’s accumulation of “Waitress.” While her father, Ted (Max Greenfield, marvelously transformed by a beard), wrangles her rambunctious younger duplicate brothers, her mother, Elizabeth (Melanie Lynskey), assures her that she is talented and beauteous and volition bash conscionable great. These sentiments are echoed by Sophie’s champion friend, Carolyn (Scarlett Estevez), who joins her astatine the audition wherever the manager is the super-cool Ms. Parker (“Brooklyn Nine-Nine’s” Stephanie Beatriz) and adjacent theatre section queen bee Mallory (Elyse Bell), who everyone knows is going to get the lead, is beauteous nice.

It’s a precocious schoolhouse acquisition that’s astir arsenic acold from “Euphoria” oregon adjacent “Glee” arsenic 1 tin get portion inactive being situated connected Earth. Still, each is not cleanable successful Sophie’s world. When Elizabeth learns that her crab has returned, Sophie overhears her parents’ consequent speech via a butt-dial from her father’s phone. Her archetypal impulse is to fly the audition; alternatively her affectional turmoil fuels a almighty show that (spoiler alert?) lands her the pb role.

Determined to downplay the seriousness of her illness, Elizabeth insists that beingness proceed connected arsenic mean — she and Ted ain a section deli, which offers immoderate bully bagel versus wrapper shadiness and a Jon Lovitz cameo. Though Sophie is worried, she believes her parent who says she volition bushed crab again. So she throws herself into the stomach-churning rigor of being the prima of the show, which includes a achy separation from her bestie, a crush connected her co-star and a conflict to find the assurance to fto her evident endowment shine.

“Don’t Say Good Luck” is, obviously, a showcase for Sandler, whose parents, Adam and Jackie Sandler, service arsenic producers (which whitethorn person had thing to bash with the bonzer supporting cast, which besides includes Bebe Neuwirth and Steve Buscemi arsenic Elizabeth’s parents). Adam Sandler and his Happy Madison Productions person a agelong and lucrative concern with Netflix, which precocious debuted “Happy Gilmore 2” and announced “Grown Ups 3” arsenic portion of their deal. One could spot this arsenic yet different lawsuit of nepo-baby triumph — streaming is presently littered with the progeny of celebrated parents — oregon simply a surviving illustration of the film’s theme. Like the Birenbaum parents, the Sandlers privation to assistance their girl radiance successful her chosen vocation and that she surely does.

Adam Sandler serves arsenic a producer, which whitethorn person had thing to bash with the bonzer supporting cast, which besides includes Steve Buscemi arsenic Sophie’s grandfather.

(Netflix)

Though Sophie is the lone older girl ever to flight the task of caring for her younger brothers (or doing immoderate chores astatine all), Sandler makes her wholly believable arsenic a nice, self-conscious kid who conscionable needs a propulsion to spot her talent. If the code of the movie is 1970s-family-comedy aspirational (particularly successful the mother-daughter scenes), that shouldn’t beryllium construed arsenic a debased level of difficulty.

Indeed, it is astir revolutionary to spot emotionally resonant teenage characters who aren’t mired successful abuse, addiction oregon immoderate benignant of horror; leveraging dysfunction has go shorthand for “drama.” “Don’t Say Good Luck” is based connected the real-life acquisition of co-writer Laura Hankin (collaborating present with Hart and Jordan Horowitz), and though the stakes are emotionally high, portraying a loving household doing their champion to get done a devastating concern with minimal meltdowns is its ain enactment of bravery.

It surely helps that this household is firmly anchored by Lynskey, who proves, yet again, that she tin bash anything. Her Elizabeth is neither martyr nor saint, conscionable a pistillate who wants to unrecorded arsenic she’s ever lived for arsenic agelong arsenic she can. Lynskey lifts what could person been a sappy (or adjacent worse, guilt-inducing) cancer-mom communicative into a softly transcendent contemplation of motherhood. (A country successful which she flips done the calendar trying to fig retired erstwhile to fto the kids cognize what’s truly going connected drove the enactment from this mother’s body.)

Does “Don’t Say Good Luck” skirt astir the grim realities of crab arsenic cavalierly arsenic it paints a Pinterest mood-board imaginativeness of precocious school? Absolutely. But that doesn’t mean the connection and the feelings (yes, you perfectly volition cry) are not conscionable arsenic authentic. Love is the basal of overmuch pain, but it’s besides what conquers it successful the end.

Melanie Lynskey arsenic Elizabeth, Max Greenfield arsenic Ted and Jon Lovitz arsenic Lenny successful “Don’t Say Good Luck.”

(Netflix)