LUCKY follows the spiritual journey of a 90-year-old atheist and the quirky characters that inhabit his off the map desert town. Having out lived and out smoked all of his contemporaries, the fiercely independent Lucky finds himself at the precipice of life, thrust into a journey of self exploration, leading towards that which is so often unattainable: enlightenment. Acclaimed character actor John Carroll Lynch's directorial debut 'Lucky', is at once a love letter to the life and career of Harry Dean Stanton as well as a meditation on morality, loneliness, spirituality, and human connection.
I wish Lucky were a little better, but it's good enough. When Stanton begins to sing, a cappella, the Mexican ballad "Volver, Volver" - it's hard not to feel your own heart break.
More than anything, it's a tribute to Stanton, who wore each of his 91 years in the deep crevasses on his long face, in his weathered voice and on his frail frame.
Harry Dean Stanton's performance is the kind of act that most actors could not pull off, but he is so soulful, so affecting that he really dominates this film. It is a deeply moving performance.
Harry Dean Stanton's final film is a fitting, small-scale charmer about an old, much-loved man living out his last days in a town populated by an endearing gaggle of eccentrics.
John Carroll Lynch, who's worked with everyone from Martin Scorsese to Albert Brooks, doesn't explicitly borrow from any of his directors, though it's clear from his careful precision that he learned a little something from all of them.
