LUCKY

Directing: B+
Acting: B
Writing: A
Cinematography: A-
Editing: B+

Lucky won't be for everyone. It's too bad. This is a movie that operates at a slow burn and gradually turns into something profound.

It's also a poignantly appropriate swan song for legendary character actor Harry Dean Stanton, here in a rare lead role. This guy, who just died last month, is 90 years old in this movie. How many other lead roles in wide release films have been acted by someone that old? Are there even any others?

This should be said up front though: Stanton's age also makes for a bit of a double-edged sword in experiencing this movie. I would hesitate to call Stanton's performance all that notable, or even nuanced. He walks around delivering his lines like he's in a deadpan dream. You know how many young children in movies deliver their lines like they don't quite understand they're acting? This is almost the same thing, just at the other end of life. Certainly Stanton understands he's acting -- he's got literally sixty years of experience -- but he also, well, in his own words, doesn't give a fuck. The end result can feel very similar.

On the other hand, director John Carroll Lynch and co-writers Logan Sparks and Drago Sumonja here craft a story very well suited to Stanton at this point in his life -- to wit, at the end of it. This is Lynch's debut feature, and at times it shows, albeit slightly: this film lacks the assuredness of more experienced directors. The pacing is nearly as slow as Stanton himself, although that proves one of many surprisingly effective elements in the end.

Stanton plays the title character, and it's a while before we learn specifics about the origin of this nickname. Suffice it to say he's very old, and in excellent health for someone his age. Much of the beginning of the film just follows Lucky around on his daily routine in his tiny desert town, including daily morning yoga exercises he's been doing for years. It should also be noted that for a small town depicted in a motion picture, it's unusually diverse: the cafe Lucky frequents has a mostly black staff, and the woman who operates the small grocery store where he gets his cigarettes invites him to her son's 10th birthday fiesta.

The local bar Lucky hangs out in has a mixed, if generally rather old, crowd. And here we see how Lucky's supporting cast is rounded out by other screen legends and longtime character actors: a drinking buddy obsessed with his tortoise that ran away is played by none other than David Lynch; another barfly played by James Darren. Barry Shabaka Henley plays the operator of the cafe, in which Tom Skerritt shows up for an extended cameo with a monologue about encountering a Japanese girl in World War II that will really stick with you. This scene is a wonderful on multiple levels, as this is the first time Stanton and Skerritt have shared the screen since 1979's Alien.

And Lucky is filled with these artfully written monologues, increasingly revealing themselves to be a collective meditation on getting old. Because just when you start to wonder whether the entire movie is just going to follow Lucky around on his daily routine, he has an inexplicable fall in his kitchen. His doctor (Ed Begley Jr) can't find anything wrong with him except that, well, he's reaching the end of his life. Most people don't make it this far, he notes. So what of the ones who do?

Here is an unusually honest portrayal of how scary it can be do to nothing more than age. Death is coming for all of us in one way or another, after all, even if we live to a ripe old age. Even when you've still got your wits about you, it can be a fearful experience. Lucky is never particularly dramatic about this; he deals almost exclusively in subtleties, as does the movie overall.

How appropriate, then, for Harry Dean Stanton to be the star? You can practically feel him walking around onscreen delivering his lines dutifully while thinking, fucking whatever. All these players surrounding him complement him well. When a young waitress from the cafe visits his house to check up on him, they share an unusually tender and frightening moment. Even the young have to face their own mortality at some point.

I suppose it could be argued that there is something nihilistic about Lucky, in the end. Except for the very end, which pointedly finds joy in all of it. And it's not exactly a surprise when that happens; the story is sprinkled with regular bits of humor. And sweetness. And a huge heap of compassion. Lucky is a film that defies expectations that last well into its first half. It turns a uniquely dark mood into a delightful surprise.

Harry Dean Stanton gains a new understanding of the way out.

Overall: B+