{"id":566894,"date":"2026-08-12T16:50:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-12T16:50:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/566894\/"},"modified":"2026-08-12T16:50:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-12T16:50:09","slug":"dont-say-good-luck-review-high-school-musical-weepie-puts-sunny-sandler-in-the-spotlight-movies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/566894\/","title":{"rendered":"Don\u2019t Say Good Luck review \u2013 high-school musical weepie puts Sunny Sandler in the spotlight | Movies"},"content":{"rendered":"

Do you, like me, have a soft spot for both high-school angst and Broadway showtunes \u2013 and maybe Douglas Goodhart\u2019s amusing Master It! Insta reels on how to make it in musical theatre? Then you might find yourself giving a pass to this sugary but heartfelt teen weepie from director and co-writer Julia Hart, co-produced by Adam Sandler<\/a> and starring his daughter Sunny Sandler.<\/p>\n

She plays Soph, the shy theatre kid who unexpectedly gets the lead in her school production of the musical Waitress. Her devoted mom Elizabeth (Melanie Lynskey<\/a>) has cancer, and thinks she should maybe wait until after the run to tell Soph the awful truth, so as not to spoil her big moment. But will that be … too late?<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a shrewd and entertaining scene at the very beginning when Soph gets a first inkling from her phone that something is terribly wrong with her mother just as she is about to go on stage to audition for a lesser role; she almost backs out but can\u2019t bear for her mean-girl blonde rival to think that this is just a humiliating bout of nerves. So she goes on stage and channels her anguish into her singing, thereby impressing the director Ms Parker (Stephanie Beatriz, from TV\u2019s Brooklyn Nine-Nine) that she gets the lead.<\/p>\n

Ms Parker has of course seen something in Soph; something real, something above and beyond mere stage histrionics. Yet Soph finds herself having to do some embarrassing onstage kissing with her dreamboat male co-star (Jack Champion) on whom she naturally has an excruciating crush. Fans of the 90s TV classic My So-Called Life might enjoy their Angela Chase\/Jordan Catalano energy (although accusations made against Jared Leto<\/a> mean that this comparison has rather lost its innocence).<\/p>\n

I slightly regretted the absence of the comedy and satire that the movie\u2019s opening act appeared to promise in modest quantities; for that, you\u2019ll have to go to Molly Gordon and Nick Lieberman\u2019s acerbic Theater Camp<\/a>. The keynote here is serious. There\u2019s nice support from Bebe Neuwirth and Steve Buscemi as Soph\u2019s grandparents and Jon Lovitz as the grumpy serving guy in the deli her dad owns. You\u2019ll need a sweet tooth for this kind of emotional sugar rush.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t Say Good Luck is on Netflix from 14 August<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Do you, like me, have a soft spot for both high-school angst and Broadway showtunes \u2013 and maybe…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":566895,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[430,156,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-566894","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/566894","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=566894"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/566894\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/566895"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=566894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=566894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=566894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}