“She is gone, but she used to be mine,” go the words of Sara Bareilles’ poignant and powerful anthem from “Waitress,” the quintessential Broadway 11 o’clock number. For musical theater fans, the mere sound of those opening chords is enough to send tear ducts into overdrive.So when at he beginning of “Don’t Say Good Luck,” high schooler Sophie Birenbaum gets the lead role of Jenna in “Waitress,” we immediately know what’s eventually coming: a tear-jerking scene where “She Used to Be Mine” takes center stage. Everything that comes before? Just the appetizer.“Don’t Say Good Luck,” directed by Julia Hart, is one of those movies that knows its audience. Starring sweet-natured Sunny Sandler, 17-year old daughter of Adam (who produces here, along with wife Jackie), the film is aimed squarely at those who get goose-bumps at the idea of playing the lead in the school play, and don’t find anything corny about the “Let’s put on a show!” spirit of theater kids.
Certainly, there are many corny moments in “Don’t Say Good Luck,” in which Sophie’s breakout moment plays out against a family tragedy. The script, by Hart, Laura Hankin and Jordan Horowitz, makes easy work of any imagined conflicts. Nobody is nasty for more than a nanosecond, and plot complications — for example, tensions between Sophie’s mother (Melanie Lynskey) and grandmother (Broadway vet Bebe Neuwirth) — are resolved without much ado.But Sandler, who starred in the wonderfully titled “You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah,” has a winning enough presence to neutralize the corny stuff. She’s a pleasure to watch, even if her stage persona is at times a bit too intimate — she sings softly when she could be belting — befitting a movie actor more than a stage actor.
