It's not often that indie darling Toni Collette is upstaged, but in the hip yet also sentiment-drenched Lucky Them, star Thomas Haden Church's awkwardly brilliant performance as an eccentric millionaire and amateur documentary filmmaker shines brighter. In a scenario that sounds more like 1994 than 2014, Collette plays struggling rock journalist Ellie Klug, who writes for some sort of mid-level music magazine in a scrubbed-up post-grunge Seattle. Klug is a middle-aged burnout and near-alcoholic who walks around with a perpetual pout on her emaciated face and seems resentful of the fact that her straight-edged editor (played by Oliver Platt) wants her to do a story that people will actually want to read. Faced with imminent joblessness, Klug agrees to write about the mysterious icon Matthew Smith (also her ex-boyfriend) who vanished into thin air a few years previously. While hopping from one mediocre musician's bed to another for empty sexual encounters, she finally meets Charlie (Church), an independently wealthy filmmaker who wants to make a documentary about Ellie's half-cocked quest to find Smith. Unfortunately, the stellar acting by Church can't save what is essentially a one-dimensional movie bereft of dramatic innovation and inspiration. Optional. (M. Sandlin)
Lucky Them
MPI, 96 min., R, DVD: $24.98 Volume 30, Issue 1
Lucky Them
Star Ratings
As of March 2022, Video Librarian has changed from a four-star rating system to a five-star one. This change allows our reviewers to have a wider range of critical viewpoints, as well as to synchronize with Google’s rating structure. This change affects all reviews from March 2022 onwards. All reviews from before this period will still retain their original rating. Future film submissions will be considered our new 1-5 star criteria.
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