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The Life List

The strange

Watch The Life List the night you start your own

Somewhere around the swimming lesson scene, it becomes clear the film has no interest in being sinister, even though the premise — a dead mother dictating her daughter's next year of life — has all the ingredients. Sofia Carson plays the daughter with wide, compliant eyes; the ten conditions unspool over two hours of gentle piano and soft city light. It's based on Lori Nelson Spielman's 2013 novel, and it keeps the book's basic shape: comply or lose the inheritance. What lingers isn't the resolution but the audacity of the list itself, ten items chosen by someone who no longer has to live with the consequences.

Practical

Cost
$0 (included with Netflix)
Best time
Any evening, ideally alone
Difficulty
Easy
Time it takes
About 2 hours
What people get wrong
People expect the premise to curdle into something dark or thriller-like and feel let down when it stays gentle; watching it distracted, on a second screen, means missing why each of the ten conditions was chosen.
With
Alone

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