“Luck” — Film Review
Sam (Eva Noblezada) is one of the unluckiest people in the world. She trips over nothing, locks herself in her bathroom, and breaks her hairbrush regularly. If something can go wrong for Sam, it will. Despite all of this, she has an eternally optimistic outlook on life. Sam is an orphan and grew up bouncing around to various children’s homes. When the film begins, she has officially aged out of the system and is living on her own for the first time.
Sam has come to terms with the fact that she didn’t find her forever family when she was at the children’s home, but she continues to hold out hope for Hazel (Adelynn Spoon), one of the younger girls she used to live with. On her way home from work, Sam stumbles upon what turns out to be a lucky penny. Suddenly, everything is going right. She decides to give the lucky penny to Hazel to take to her upcoming weekend visit with a potential forever family. Before she can do that, Sam accidentally flushes the penny down the toilet and finds herself face-to-face with a talking cat named Bob (Simon Pegg). He explains that the lucky penny was his and the two journey to the magical worlds of Good and Bad Luck to track down the coin.
Luck borrows many of its concepts and imagery from Pixar’s Inside Out and Soul. In particular, the worlds of Good Luck and Bad Luck look passably similar to Inside Out’s Headquarters or Soul’s Great Before. Luck’s various lands lack the attention to detail given to the magical worlds of Pixar. There are no cutesy background jokes or intricate, thoughtful set designs. Instead, Good Luck looks like a garden-filled metropolis and Bad Luck is a dark, dirty warehouse. These are bland backdrops for a story that doesn’t go anywhere until the final twenty minutes.
There’s a brief moment when Noblezada’s Sam is given the opportunity to sing a pop song as a means of distraction in the world of Good Luck. While brief, it does create a longing to hear Noblezada sing more in an actual animated musical. She’s a two-time Tony nominated performer whose voice is Luck’s greatest strength. Not only in her short singing scene, but in her speaking performance as well. In the same way she’s able to command Broadway stages, Noblezada’s voice brings a bright liveliness to Sam that goes beyond the lackluster script she’s stuck in.
In its heart, Luck does have something important to say. The film wants to teach children that bad luck is a learning experience and that they shouldn’t shut down when things go wrong. Challenges and problems are opportunities to adapt. What we view as bad luck may be leading us on a path to something that’s greater than we could ever have imagined. It’s easy to see one event and write it off as good or bad, but Luck encourages the audience to look at the bigger picture. The premise is good, but it’s a shame more care wasn’t put into the story and the world of Luck.
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