“She is gone, but she used to be mine,” go the words of Sara Bareilles’ poignant and powerful anthem from “Waitress,” the quintessential Broadway 11 o’clock number. For musical theater fans, the mere sound of those opening chords is enough to send tear ducts into overdrive.
So when at he beginning of “Don’t Say Good Luck,” high schooler Sophie Birenbaum gets the lead role of Jenna in “Waitress,” we immediately know what’s eventually coming: a tear-jerking scene where “She Used to Be Mine” takes center stage. Everything that comes before? Just the appetizer.
“Don’t Say Good Luck,” directed by Julia Hart, is one of those movies that knows its audience. Starring sweet-natured Sunny Sandler, 17-year old daughter of Adam (who produces here, along with wife Jackie), the film is aimed squarely at those who get goose-bumps at the idea of playing the lead in the school play, and don’t find anything corny about the “Let’s put on a show!” spirit of theater kids.
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Certainly, there are many corny moments in “Don’t Say Good Luck,” in which Sophie’s breakout moment plays out against a family tragedy. The script, by Hart, Laura Hankin and Jordan Horowitz, makes easy work of any imagined conflicts. Nobody is nasty for more than a nanosecond, and plot complications — for example, tensions between Sophie’s mother (Melanie Lynskey) and grandmother (Broadway vet Bebe Neuwirth) — are resolved without much ado.
But Sandler, who starred in the wonderfully titled “You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah,” has a winning enough presence to neutralize the corny stuff. She’s a pleasure to watch, even if her stage persona is at times a bit too intimate — she sings softly when she could be belting — befitting a movie actor more than a stage actor.
We first meet Sophie, a sensitive and less-than-confident sophomore, practicing her audition song before school. Her mom, loving and encouraging, wishes her luck, and Sophie admonishes her with an old theater adage. “Don’t say good luck!” she says. Just say, “Break a leg.” Mom says she’d be so sad if Sophie were to break a leg.
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Sophie’s parents run a deli, and there’s a motif about the deli struggling with the need to serve healthy options, like kale wraps, which nobody likes. Jon Lovitz, as the cook, provides occasional comic fodder, but is underused — as is Steve Buscemi, a welcome presence as the grandfather.
At the audition, Sophie’s trying out for the supporting role of Dawn, because it’s obvious that the lead — Jenna, waitress and pie-baking whiz — will go to Mallory, the confident blonde. But while waiting to go on, Sophie inadvertently learns some terrible news — her mother’s cancer has returned.
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Sophie needs to absorb this, just as she climbs the stage to audition. She imbues her song with genuine pathos, and soon finds out she’s unexpectedly won the role of Jenna.
The plot of “Waitress” is not exactly school-appropriate: It’s about pregnant Jenna’s torrid affair with her gynecologist, while she’s in an abusive marriage with a violent husband (wisely absent from this high-school version).
The gynecologist is played by Jack, resident high-school heartthrob (Jack Champion), who’s only ever played a prince before. There’s some romantic tension between him and Sophie, but it’s fleeting.
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The deepest relationship here is between Sophie and her mother, who’s losing strength daily but still struggling to give her kids the support they need. The most enjoyable scene between the two takes place in a mall, where, to help Sophie with her character in the show, they try out Southern accents together on the shopkeepers.
Every movie about a theater production ends, of course, with the performance itself. Earlier in the action, the empathetic teacher (Stephanie Beatriz) who directs the show had mentioned that Sophie’s rendition of “She Used to Be Mine” is “not quite there yet.” Wanna take bets on whether she ends up making it work?
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“She’s imperfect, but she tries,” go the lyrics. The movie, too, is imperfect, but the effort — and young Sandler’s easy charm — will go a long way toward satisfying the theater geek inside many of us.
“Don’t Say Good Luck,” a Netflix release, has been rated PG-13 by the Motion Picture Association “for thematic material, some strong language, teen drinking, and sexual references.” Running time: 95 minutes. Two and a half stars out of four.
