| Bilgi : Poor Lindsay Lohan. Once one of the more
promising teenaged movie stars, she has since begun to talk
openly of her desire for more grown-up roles, but the powers
that be have been slow to give her that opportunity—so she has
had to make do with rather lame "transitional" movies. The
publicity materials for Just My Luck claim that Ashley
Albright, the protagonist of this film, is Lohan's first
"adult" character—but that may depend on how one defines the
word. On the one hand, I don't think Lohan's character was
still going to high school, exactly, in last year's Herbie:
Fully Loaded. On the other hand, while Ashley and her
friends in Just My Luck may have jobs and apartments in
New York City, they still behave like adolescents.
Lindsay Lohan stars as Ashley
Albright, New York City's luckiest woman
 |
To make things worse, Just My Luck is
a formulaic romantic comedy saddled with a really dumb
gimmick. Apparently, while most people go through life
experiencing good luck and bad luck alike, some people are
born into this world with a strong case of just one or the
other. Ashley is one of the good-luck people: rain showers
turn to sunshine when she steps outside, money turns up in the
street when she steps off the curb, taxis and elevators show
up exactly when she needs them, and her boss at a public
relations firm, Peggy Braden (Missi Pyle), promotes her to the
company's highest ranks even though she acts like little more
than a glorified intern.
Ashley takes all this good fortune in her
stride, but her friends sense something unusual, and they even
go so far as to "test" their theory that Ashley is always
lucky; they buy a scratch-and-win card, pass it to Ashley, and
tell her to scratch it—and sure enough, she wins. It's a
wonder they don't all head to a casino.
Ashley shares a kiss with Jake
(Chris Pine), forever changing their luck and
lives
|
And then there are the unlucky people, of
whom we meet two. The main one is Jake Hardin (Chris Pine,
The Princess Diaries 2), whose morning, the first time
we see him, is a series of frustrations and embarrassments.
Jake manages a British rock 'n' roll band, and he wants to get
their CD into the hands of music mogul Damon Phillips (Faizon
Love), so he stalks the man as Damon takes his dog for a walk
through the park. And along the way, Jake's pants rip when he
bends over, he gets dog poop on his hand, a woman runs right
into him when he tries to wash his hands in a pool, and then
when his pants fall down she beats him up and calls for the
police, who promptly take him down to the station. Are we
laughing yet?
The only person who sympathizes with Jake is
his neighbor Katy (Makenzie Vega, younger sister of Spy
Kids' Alexa Vega), a girl who has her own share of bad
luck. We don't see too much of her, but we see enough to
understand that she, too, is a "loser," in Jake's words, and
that this is why she and Jake get along so well.
Inevitably, Ashley and Jake meet. Ashley is
put in charge of a masquerade party for Damon's record
company, and Jake ends up crashing the party in yet another
attempt to get his CD into Damon's hands. Somehow, Ashley and
Jake end up on the dance floor together, and even though
neither one has a clue who the other person is—and even though
Ashley has just started seeing some other guy—they kiss. And
then, suddenly, he's got all the good luck and she's got all
the bad.
Dana (Bree Turner), Maggie
(Samaire Armstrong)
and Ashley try to find their way
through shifting fortunes
|
But is it really bad luck that Ashley
has? Sure, the heel breaks off her shoe and her dress tears
and the police arrest her for matching up her boss with a
neighbor, Antonio (Carlos Ponce), who turns out to be a male
escort. But a lot of what happens to her afterwards just seems
self-inflicted, the result of stupid decisions, like when she
runs the water in a bathtub after throwing a still-active
hair-dryer in there, or when she develops an eye rash after
fishing a contact lens out of a cat's litter box, or when she
tries to do janitorial work at a bowling alley in high heels,
or when she pours way, way too much detergent into someone
else's washing machine.
At any rate, Ashley figures out fairly soon
that she lost her luck because of that kiss, but since the guy
she kissed was wearing a mask, she has no idea who he is.
Thus, she embarks on a quest to track down and kiss a long
list of men who were at the party—and since Jake was never
supposed to be there, he's not on her list. But of course,
this does not prevent her from bumping into him anyway; they
don't recognize each other, but he does know what it's like to
have nothing but bad luck, and he can tell that she is a
"loser" like he used to be, so he takes her under his wing,
helping her find a new job, inviting her to concerts, and so
on.
Hmm, wonder who Ashley ends up
with in the end
|
Meanwhile, Jake goes from success to success
with his band—saving Damon from a freak auto accident and
thereby getting time in his recording studio, putting his
band's first single on the radio, selling out a major concert
venue. You might be inclined to think that his success would
have to be due to his newfound luck, since the music
this band plays is nothing special, despite the frequency with
which the other characters applaud them and say "That's
great!" However, the band in question, McFly, is a bona fide successful
British band in real life, and the four guys who make up the
band are essentially playing themselves in this movie.
We might ask what on earth these lads were
doing with a "loser" like Jake in the first place—surely there
are easier ways to penetrate the North American market than
hooking up with a bowling-alley janitor—but the more important
point to note here is that McFly's target audience in real
life is primarily made up of teenaged, even pre-teen, girls.
That, perhaps more than anything, lets you know just what sort
of movie this really is, all claims to "adulthood" aside. One
day Lohan will make movies for grown-ups—and with A Prairie
Home Companion just a few weeks away, that day may be
sooner than we think—but this movie certainly isn't one of
them. |
