Lucky Them

Synopsis: Ellie Klug (Toni Collette) is a veteran rock journalist at Stax, an aging music magazine that’s struggling to stay relevant in the digital age. She drinks too much, has too many one-night-stands and hasn’t written a great feature in a very long time.  But now her boss, Giles (Oliver Platt) is giving her one last chance to redeem herself by tracking down the legendary singer, Matt Smith who, despite disappearing ten years ago after a presumed suicide, is rumoured to still be alive. The only problem for Ellie is that Matt is also the relationship she never really got over so she’s not even sure she wants to find him. Still, with the help of another old flame, the wealthy, well-meaning but socially awkward Charlie (Thomas Haden Church) and the added complication of her new boyfriend, up-and-coming singer-songwriter, Lucas Stone (Ryan Eggold), Ellie sets out to solve both the mystery of the missing rock star and her own sense of herself in the world.

Unlike a lot of people, I wasn’t really a fan of Toni Collette’s tricksy turn as the multiple personalities of The United States of Tara television series. I’m more drawn to her roles in films like Chris and Paul Weitz’s About A Boy (2002) or M. Night Shyamalan’s The Sixth Sense (1999) or even P.J. Hogan’s under-appreciated Mental (2012)  - characters who are broken or damaged and somehow stuck in a stasis that prevents them from putting their lives back together. There’s a deeper, more grounded and vulnerable quality she brings to these roles and that’s the Toni Collette who shines in this funny, charming and engaging little film

It’d be easy to lump Lucky Them in with other ‘rock journalist’ movies like Cameron Crowe’s Almost Famous (2000) or Todd Haynes’ Velvet Goldmine (1998) - also featuring Collette – but here, the music story is a bit of a McGuffin that ends up carrying a story that’s really about love and loneliness and the self-destructive nature of not being able to let go or move on. In addition to Collette, the rest of the cast is equally terrific. Eggold (who wrote the songs his character sings is full of irresistible boyish charm as the younger man in her life and the always-reliable Platt brings balance at the other end of the scale as the long-suffering older mentor and friend who exerts a bit of tough love to get Ellie to face, as the magazine itself must do, the imperative in her life – find a way to change or become irrelevant.

But the standout performance is from Thomas Haden Church who as Charlie deftly charts a steady, deliberate course from cringeworthy boor to a character that is endearingly sympathetic. The several road trips he and Ellie undertake in their search for Matt provide great insight into their respective characters and his assertion that any relationship that can be summed up in one simple sentence is clearly not complex enough and doomed to failure proves to be the message that underpins the story.

This is a romantic film that masks sadness with lots of funny scenes and situations, but it’s not a formulaic romantic comedy and it’s not just a drama or a love story. It sits, very comfortably, somewhere in between. There’s also a couple of surprises at the end of the film that can only be mentioned in the vaguest of terms without giving things away. One is an odd casting choice that, for me at least, served to pull focus away from an important moment in the story. The other is the ending itself, which is nicely underplayed and ultimately satisfying.

Lucky Them was the project Paul Newman was working on when he died and its connection to him is maintained by the involvement of his widow, Joanne Woodward, as producer (and as a voice in the film).  There’s a touching dedication to him at the end of the film. There’s also a funny post-credit coda that’s well worth hanging around for.

 

 

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