With smarter streamlining, “The Life List” could’ve been impactful. As is, the two-hour-plus Netflix original suffers by attempting to blend two predictable storylines into one: a reductive romantic search for The One crammed in alongside a drama about a directionless woman encouraged by her dead mother to rediscover her joie de vivre in order to claim her inheritance. Not only does its narrative momentum stall all too frequently, but our heroine’s completion quests lack the basics to deliver rousing feelings. Worse still, it’s frustratingly more concerned with telling us how she’s financially able to afford having a delayed quarter-life identity crisis in New York City than it is with giving her journey toward enlightenment any genuine, satiating sense of internal transformation.
Droll Alex (Sofia Carson) is stuck in her life, only she doesn’t realize it. She bides her free time in an unglamourous city loft apartment with her longterm, layabout boyfriend Finn (Michael Rowland). She’s been out of her dream job as a teacher for months and has fallen back on a career in marketing, working for her mom Elizabeth’s (Connie Britton) cosmetics company. Unlike her brothers Lucas (Dario Ladani Sanchez) and Julian (Federico Rodriguez), she has no immediate plans for kids and suburban living. She’s a caring aunt and a great friend to her sweet sister-in-law Zoe (Marianne Rendón) and snarky blond bestie Megan (Chelsea Frei). Yet the world as Alex knows it is about to be upended.
Elizabeth dies of cancer (or so we infer through context clues, as the filmmaker treats saying it like it’s the other “C-word”) and has left specific instructions for her estate with fresh-faced associate lawyer Brad (Kyle Allen). In lieu of getting an expected job promotion and familial belongings, Alex is surprised by a motherly lecture from beyond the grave on a recordable DVD. Mom’s orders are clear: Alex is to accomplish 12 line items on her 13-year-old self’s bucket list by the end of the year or she won’t receive her inheritance. Alex’s mission to reignite her sense of self and spend a little more time with her mother via pre-recorded video vignettes won’t be easy, as the list is filled with tough tasks like playing classical piano, reading “Moby Dick” and finding true love.
Adapting his film from Lori Nelson Spielman’s novel of the same name, writer-director Adam Brooks (“Definitely, Maybe”) experiences difficulty transforming the characters and their conundrums from page to screen. He fails to know exactly what to cut, what to keep and what to completely overhaul. A huge family secret reveal takes us on a detour for a large portion of time that would play better in an episodic series rather than a condensed film. It maddeningly states and reiterates things that were shown mere minutes prior. There are assignments within Alex’s original assignment, adding bullet points to her to-do list, like playing in a recital and completing Elizabeth’s true-love questionnaire, as well as further obligations to do other things that scare her for a week straight.
With the exception of the two men who provide the film with its ridiculously unexciting love triangle, everyone in Alex’s orbit is one-dimensional and uninteresting. We’re given few reasons to care about these people. Megan is a pretty terrible pal, torpedoing Alex’s burgeoning relationship with potential paramour Garrett (Sebastian De Souza). Brad’s gorgeous girlfriend Nina (Maria Jung) is friendly with Alex, chatting and singing during a long car ride, but suddenly turns on her for no better reason than screenwriter-contrived female jealousy. Julian and Lucas are so bland, they’re basically interchangeable. Their wants are expressed late in the film, providing padding instead of an honest new angle.
And then there’s Alex. It’s easy to understand the actions that have her settling for a drab career and passionless relationship, but we rarely empathize with her. Not for lack of trying either. Carson instills in her hints of humanity and tenderness underneath a hardened exterior. Her comedic timing, nuance and witty rapport with Allen gift the film with glints of light and effervescence, as she elevates the material while downplaying Alex’s harder edges.
Yet the character conceived by the author and filmmaker is fairly selfish, and when faced with opportunities to truly evolve, she doesn’t take them. Her experience taming troubled student Ezra (Luca Padovan) almost earns her our sympathies. Almost. She acquires new skills, inevitably breaking free from her comfort zone, but that’s different than growing as a human being. All she succeeds in doing is centering herself without doing any of the emotional labor — from the way she repeatedly sets up Garrett for failure to how she doesn’t factor in anyone’s feelings but her own, specifically when confronted by men from her past who’ve disappointed her.
Where the narrative is left lacking, Brooks and company find some strength in their aesthetics. The dissolve from a god’s eye view of a comforting, warm embrace in a bed between mother and daughter to the cold, sorrowful chill of Alex’s lonely body hits us like a wallop. Backlit by golden light, the teenage-girl-style handwriting that scrolls across the screen during the montage when Alex completes a few goals evokes the nostalgia of a bygone era. The awkward conversation between Alex and her estranged father Samuel (José Zúñiga) as traffic speeds between the pair emphasizes the chasm in their relationship.
Gender-flipping a few genre tropes — like showing the guy as the klutz and having the girl chase him down to proclaim her love — no longer passes for subversive. Sadly, the film’s sentiments hold as much depth and resonance as a “live, laugh, love” placard on a dusty shelf at HomeGoods. It’s ironic that for a movie hoping to inspire us to take risks and rediscover our own dreams, it’s far too comfortable settling for dull, formulaic conflicts and shenanigans to tell its tale.
