Just My Luck

The opening credits, with their sliding pastel panels and interchanging synonyms and antonyms inform us that this is not only going to be a comedy, but it’s going to be similar to every other comedy that begins with sliding color panels and flip-flopping words.

From the moment Ashley Albright (Lindsay Lohan) begins her day, clouds turn to sunshine, dollar bills find their way into her fingers, opportunities fall into her lap. When she finds an elevator, an attractive man is inside—practically waiting for her. Jake Hardin (Chris Pine), on the other hand, is a lightning rod of calamity. When he reaches down to pick up a penny, his pants rip.

The story seems like a “Freaky Friday” rehash. Ashley, a public relations agent working for Peggy Braden (Missi Pyle), scores an opportunity to put together a PR event for record executive Damon Phillips (Faizon Love). Jake is an aspiring producer doing sound for a British rock group, McFly. Somewhere along this dreadfully languid plot the twain shall meet. Of course this occurs at the big event, a dance party staged to promote Phillips’ artists. Jake sneaks in a side door dressed as one of the dancers so he can pop his band’s demo on Damon. Guess what happens next. You don’t need to be the hired fortune teller at the party to figure it out.

Yes, much of the plot can be seen from low Earth orbit, including but not limited to the fact that Jake will be disguised at the time, they won’t exchange contact information (“I’ll be the girl who looks like this,” is all Ashley says), he will leave with her fateful kiss on his lips and she will be left “SOL” (as he puts it)… all a set up for having to scour the city for the guy with whom she’ll reconnect without knowing it, naturally. Ashley is fired from her job for ruining Peggy’s evening (I won’t say how, but it matters not because the situation reverses itself with no good explanation), Jake ends up saving Phillips life and McFly is signed to a recording contract. Because of Hollywood’s inability to laugh at itself, a key opportunity is missed by refusing to incorporate the harsh reality of the inequities of recording contracts as a turnabout consequence should Ashley and Jake kiss once more and return their luck to normal.

The characterizations are exceedingly dull but that shouldn’t be surprising. In Hollywood, there’s an inverse proportion between the creativity in a film and the number of writers involved — this had five, just four more short of being “Armageddon.” The script was written by three, rewritten by two, and it’s not clever by half. Instead of painting Albright equally oblivious and hapless as Jake, she always seems to carry on as though she knows what’s going to happen. I’m sure this might be the case in such a universe where someone knows they can’t lose, they’d get wise to it and maybe a little arrogant… but it doesn’t make for an interesting character. Jake is only a cheap imitation of characters previously played by Mark Ruffalo, who is much more skilled in portraying self-aware indifference or passive pessimism (i.e. just short of cynical because it requires effort) to his fortune or lack thereof. Lohan reads more like oak than Marilyn Monroe on her most inebriated day.

While I realize this is a bit of a fantastical film, and I don’t have a problem with the voodoo mumbo jumbo stuff, the rest of the world depicted bothers me. There’s nothing real to attach one’s self to. The movie panders to, I feel, a child’s impression of what work and life are about. The PR and record label people are not terribly cartoonish. However, either Damon and Peggy exude boisterousness, phony politeness and overbearing micromanagement (What company executive, i.e. Damon, or owner, i.e. Peggy, goes about town to schmooze with every prospect? Isn’t that what sales grunts are for?), or they’re emulating the phoniness that exists in the entertainment industry which is populated by people who seem unaware of the difference between playing CEO and being CEO–Sean Combs comes to mind.

Viewers are so interred by the relentless self-promotion of self-promotion in the media that not one person got the only (almost unintentionally) funny joke in the entire film, when Peggy says, “This is real life, Ashley. You not only lost me my biggest client but I can’t imagine what the Post is going to say about me!”

This film’s failure at self-awareness reflects a culture of excess that is trumpeted by various media conglomerates, the worst incarnation of late being a grating show about spoiled teenagers pissing and moaning over the details of the five, six or seven figure birthday parties their noveau riche parents throw for them. It’s as if our culture champions fiscal stupidity which creates a society of insolvent suckers and affluent, insouciant philistines. And here the studios are, delivering it wholesale on the big screen to a target market of 10 to 15 year-olds. They’ve every right to do that; I’m not a censor. I am, however, a consumer advocate and I advocate demanding a better product for your nine or ten dollars.

Just My Luck • Dolby® Digital surround sound in select theatres • MPAA Rating: PG-13 for some brief sexual references. • Distributed by Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp.