The Life List (A PopEntertainment.com Movie Review)

The Life List

THE LIFE LIST (2025)

Starring Sofia Carson, Kyle Allen, Connie Britton, Sebastian de Souza, José Zúñiga, Jordi Mollà, Dario Ladani-Sanchez, Federico Rodriguez, Marianne Rendón, Michael Rowland, Chelsea Frei, Rachel Zeiger-Haag, Luca Padovan, Maria Jung, Donnetta Lavinia Grays, Jonathan Lipnick, Ben Warheit, Mary Joy, Shannon Barnes and Patrick Ewing.

Screenplay by Adam Brooks.

Directed by Adam Brooks.

Distributed by Netflix. 125 minutes. Rated PG-13.

For a film which tries to convey some really deep emotional and humane lessons, The Life List is swimming in relatively shallow waters. This is not to say that the film isn’t relatively enjoyable, sort of in a cheesy Lifetime movie sort of way. It is just an acknowledgement that The Life List is not nearly as important or relevant as it thinks it is.

Sofia Carson is charming as Alex, a young woman who is sort of loafing through her life, working at her mom’s huge cosmetics business and living with a guy who she kind of likes, but is not exactly sold on. When her mother (Connie Britton) is diagnosed with cancer, Alex drops everything to care for her. However, when mom dies, her will cuts Alex out of the business for her sister-in-law – which Alex expected to take over – and even fires her from Alex current job.

The will suggests that Alex’ inheritance is on hold for one year. Through a series of home-taped DVD’s, mom reminds Alex of a “life list” she had made up when she was only 13 of the things she wanted to achieve. Even though she has changed a lot in the 17 or so years since she made up the list, mom feels that Alex has lost her sense of adventure, motivation and wonder.

Therefore, in order to get her part of the inheritance, Alex has the year to live out all of the wishes she made on her list all those years ago. Some of those goals are relatively simple – finish reading Moby Dick, learn to play “Claire de Lune” on the piano and to camp outside in a tent. Others are more problematic – to mend fences with her estranged father, to become a teacher and to find true love. Each time she achieves one of the things on the list, she receives another disk from her mom’s lawyer, with mom cheerleading her through from beyond the grave.

First of all, it must be nice to be rich enough to be able to basically take a year off to try to find your bliss. Most of us have to worry about stuff like rent, utilities, groceries, etc., but none of these things seem to be a concern for Alex and her large, sweet but dysfunctional family. Alex lives in a large, funky Brooklyn apartment [well, at least large for Brooklyn], and is able to eat well, take on a volunteer job and change her schedule on a whim when her quest requires.

The whole time, she insists that she isn’t doing it for the money. Right. That is obviously the answer of someone who has never in her life felt the need for basic necessities.

But, okay, Alex is rich enough to do this. That is the basic concept of the movie, so let’s allow The Life List its central conceit. Assuming Alex can afford all this, does the story work?

Basically the film sort flips back and forth between two storylines. One has Alex dealing with her grief on losing her mother, trying to deal with semi-complicated relationships with her family and friends and trying to regain her sense of wonder. At the same time, she must decide between the three men in her life – her original boyfriend Finn (Michael Rowland), a cute British teacher named Garrett (Sebastian de Souza) who works at the school she volunteers at and her new friend, her mom’s lawyer Brad (Kyle Allen).

Honestly, the life lessons sections of the film are more intriguing than the love triangle bits (one of the guys is dispatched rather early on and there is little doubt which of the other two she will end up with). None of it is really nearly as earth-shaking as the filmmakers want us to believe but taking it all in at The Life List’s level, it makes for a nice enough viewing experience.

I can pretty safely say that no one will put watching The Life List on their own personal life lists. However, if you are looking for a charming, fun and non-challenging viewing experience when scrolling through Netflix titles, you can do a lot worse.

Jay S. Jacobs

Copyright ©2025 PopEntertainment.com. All rights reserved. Posted: March 30, 2025.