Lucky

Lucky has been around for decades.  He's smoked a pack a day for most of them.  His doctor says, eh, don't stop, if they haven't killed you by now they're not going to.  I was reminded of my concern some years back for my ninety-eight year old grandmother, who stopped eating everything but cheesecake.  She had also decided to eliminate her blood pressure pills.  Her GP told me not to worry about either thing.  Indeed, she lived to one hundred and one.

Lucky meanders around his desert landscape, following a daily routine of yoga, breakfast at a diner, a trip to the bodega, some game shows, a later stop at a bar.  Everyone knows him.  They are aware he does not believe in the afterlife. He believes in nothing, quite emphatically.  Lucky is of the mindset that one returns to that same void one occupied before birth.  He is not saddened by this idea, and remains content, hopeful.  But at one point he admits he's scared.  Of what?

2017's LUCKY was one of my most anticipated films for that year, nearly as much so as BLADE RUNNER 2049 and PHANTOM THREAD.  Also, for Twin Peaks: The Return, quite relevant in this discussion.  Here was a showcase for one of my favorite character actors - Harry Dean Stanton - playing a ninety year old atheist on what the ads called a spiritual journey.  Harry's friend and frequent collaborator David Lynch plays a role, as does Stanton's old ALIEN cast mate Tom Skerritt.  Another fine character actor, John Carroll Lynch, makes his directorial debut. Stanton passed away before the film's release, adding a serious gravitas. What a swan song this must be!

At the end of the hour and one half, I had a hollow feeling.  Big disappointment, but also the emptiness you feel when you experience something less than genuine. Yes, that's a harsh assessement.  I have no doubts that the cast and crew of LUCKY had good intentions.  I suppose my expectations were too great.  But were they? I would've been fine with a plotless character study, one in which the old man wanders around his town and surveys his long life.  That does describe this film.  So what's the issue?.  Big ones: subpar script, direction, and editing.

Logan Sparks and Drago Sumonja's script might've just as well been a skeleton upon which the actors could've ad libbed.  Maybe it is.  But I was struck at its simplicity.   I was expecting some poetry, philosophy.   It felt shallow and obvious.  Flashing digital numbers on a coffee maker and cactii were not suitable enough metaphors for this viewer.  There should've have been considerable weight in Lucky's story. "Spiritual journey"? Maybe it was all internalized, because what I got from this movie felt like an undergraduate's thesis, at best.

John Carroll Lynch's direction is, politely stated, amateurish.  This is especially obvious in the scene with Lucky and the young waitress from the diner, who stops by his house one afternoon.  I guess it was supposed to play awkwardly, but it felt more like the actors were looking for some offscreen guidance.  There is a sense of listlessness throughout the movie, of an uncertainty of pace, tone, and even content.  Wim Wenders orchestrated pure art with his slow paced desert opera starring Stanton,  PARIS, TEXAS, back in 1984.  J.C. Lynch needs more experience behind the camera, to say the least.

And Siobodan Gajic's editing? Sloppy, abrupt, seemingly to cut in the middle of key scenes.  Some of the worst I've seen in a (semi) high profile film.

That leaves the performances, which are marvelous.  Just about unavoidable with this cast.  I forgot to mention Ed Begley Jr., who plays Lucky's physician.  Their scene is one of my favorites in the picture.  Ron Livingston does good work as a young insurance salesman.  Skerritt plays a Marine vet who shares a wartime memory with Lucky, a Navy vet.  David Lynch is irresistible as Lucky's dear friend Howard, who laments the escape of his tortoise, President Roosevelt, who's probably one hundred years old.  Howard's monologue about the tortoise and its lifelong burden is one of the most touching and observant I've heard in some time.  The rest of the actors were mostly unknown to me, but filled their roles nicely.

Nonetheless, fans of the great Harry Dean Stanton, an actor who has given us many years of fine performances and even some music (he gets to sing during a memorable birthday party scene) must watch LUCKY, his screen bow, a final appearance that feels all the more valuable now in spite of its many shortcomings.

P.S.  If you want a really powerful and heartbreaking display of Stanton's latter day mastery, watch  David Lynch's new Twin Peaks series, in which the old cuss reprises his role as Carl.  His moments of generosity toward a trailer park resident and how he handles the death of a young boy are far more profound than anything in LUCKY.