Directed by Megan Griffiths, executive produced by Joanne Woodward and dedicated to the memory of her late husband Paul Newman, LUCKY THEM has been sitting on the shelf for a wee while.
This happened to another Toni Collette starrer recently, A LONG WAY DOWN, which was only released (finally) for the British Film Festival. Both films deserve better.
In LUCKY THEM, Collette plays Ellie Krug, a rock journalist who had an impetuous relationship with an enigmatic and reclusive rock star who disappeared at the height of his fame, presumed dead.
When reports of sightings of the missing muso start surfacing, Ellie’s editor insists she investigate and write not just “a piece” but a memoir.
Reluctantly, with dismissal from the magazine if she does not pursue the assignment, she goes about discovering the source of these sightings.
Extricating a thousand dollars from her editor to pay her source, she inadvertently loses the grand and has to beg the money from an old suitor, who agrees on the cash with the proviso that he tag along and make a documentary film of the investigation.
The narrative becomes much bigger than the story, with tributaries, estuaries, meanders and watersheds.
Ellie discovers a new talent, Lucas Stone, who may be the next big thing in both the industry and Ellie’s heart. There’s a wedding that has a few more surprises that naturally occur during ordinary nuptials, and there’s a cameo from an A list star that’s a wonder.
Collette is quite cool as the perennial rock chick, a Peta Pan, if you will, not really wanting to grow up, certainly not wanting to get old.
Oliver Platt is in fine form as her editor and Thomas Hayden Church channels Thomas Hayden Church as the ex-suitor cum documentarian whose eccentricity is baffling yet vaguely endearing.
As singer songwriter Lucas Stone, Ryan Eggold epitomises the romantic rakish latent rock talent.
LUCKY THEM is a bitter sweet journey to the other side of ALMOST FAMOUS.
