Lucky, 2017.
Directed by John Carroll Lynch
Starring Harry Dean Stanton, David Lynch, Barry Shabaka Henley, Beth Grant, and Tom Skerritt.
SYNOPSIS:
The spiritual journey of a ninety-year-old atheist.
Late, lamented Hollywood legend Harry Dean Stanton had the sort of face the camera practically keeled over for. Less a visage than an ordnance survey map of Hollywood history, Dean Stanton’s features were testament to his extraordinary 60 year career as a ubiquitous, scene-stealing support player in the likes of Alien and Repo Man.
Small wonder that debut director John Carroll Lynch makes such sublime use of the actor’s wonderfully weathered features in his lyrical small town drama Lucky. Indeed, Stanton’s face practically is the entire story, competing with the sun-baked, cactus-strewn landscapes for sheer ruggedness.
Named after Stanton’s central character, Lucky is that rare movie that gifts the actor a juicy lead role, comparable to his iconic desert-trekking loner in Wim Wenders’ Paris, Texas (to which Lynch clearly alludes in the sun-baked opening sequence). The story is as unassuming and ambling as the crusty old codger it centres around: an atheist who rises like clockwork to the sound of his beloved mariachi music, who has committed himself to regular morning yoga exercises, stocks only milk in his fridge for coffee and who practically spits death in the face with his cigarette smoking habit.
Renowned in his local community as a lover of crosswords and discussions of theoretical concepts (the nature of the word ‘reality’ makes for an amusing early diversion), Lucky is so named having been landed with the apparently easy role of cook during his time fighting the Japanese in World War 2. He shuffles between his local bar, the Mexican-owned convenience store and another establishment that invokes c-word levels of ire from the irascible curmudgeon. Meanwhile local kook Howard (David Lynch on typically oddball form) has lost his tortoise Mr Roosevelt and is burned up about it.
It’s only when an unexpected fall casts a pall over things that Lucky starts to reassess his life, although Lynch is never so glib as to lay things on with a trowel. In fact, whereas this would usually be the terminal, knocking-at-death’s-door moment in a lesser drama, local doctor Ed Begley Jr. is baffled by Lucky’s seemingly impervious advance into old age, and can’t find anything medically wrong with him. The director circumvents the usual clichés and familiar narrative with many more sly touches like these.
Steadily the movie blooms into a quietly poignant study of the advance towards mortality, best summed up in a glorious Alien reunion of sorts between Stanton and former co-star Tom Skerritt, here playing an ageing ex-Marine with whom Lucky forges a connection. Lynch has a great eye for both faces (character regulars Beth Grant and Barry Shabaka Henley are among those drifting in and out of Lucky’s life) and the dusty rhythms of provincial American life. It’s not too dissimilar to the gentle pace of Jim Jarmusch’s recent Paterson.
Even so it’s Stanton’s moment in the sun and he seizes it greedily. The movie isn’t in fact his final completed project but it will surely be his last truly defining role, a compelling blend of gentle sage wisdom and simmering anger that allows room for one of the loveliest fourth wall breaks in recent cinema. He even gets to demonstrate his unexpectedly tender Mariachi singing chops at one stage – it’s a fitting send off for one of Hollywood’s true cowboy Mavericks who marched to the beat of his own drum, a perfect synergy of star and character.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★ ★
Sean Wilson
Originally published October 9, 2017. Updated April 16, 2018.
