Don’t Say Good Luck review – high-school musical weepie puts Sunny Sandler in the spotlight

A mother’s illness threatens to overshadow a stagestruck teen’s big break in a school production

Do you, like me, have a soft spot for both high-school angst and Broadway showtunes – and maybe Douglas Goodhart’s 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 and starring his daughter Sunny Sandler.

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) 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?

There’s 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’t 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’s Brooklyn Nine-Nine) that she gets the lead.

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 mean that this comparison has rather lost its innocence).

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

• Don’t Say Good Luck is on Netflix from 14 August