Just My Luck: Comedy. Starring Lindsay Lohan and Chris Pine. Directed by
Donald Petrie. (PG-13. 103 minutes. At Bay Area theaters.)
The jolt in “Just My Luck” comes early. Lindsay Lohan walks out of a
building in Manhattan and hails a taxi, and the camera switches to a close-up,
her first in the movie. It’s alarming. Two years ago, Lohan was a 17-year-old
kid who looked like a 17-year-old kid. But here she has the tight, valiant
smile of a faded ingenue, like Marilyn on the beach, like someone trying to
cheer her way past a haunted memory.
The nice thing about being 19 and not 40 is that it’s possible to bounce
back. But as it stands, Lohan looks like someone who hasn’t had six straight
hours of sleep since “Mean Girls,” and that puts her in an odd place in “Just
My Luck,” an awful comedy in which she stars as a public relations executive.
Interacting with her normal-looking co-stars Bree Turner and Samaire Armstrong,
who play her best friends, Lohan doesn’t seem like someone from their world.
It’s the palpable difference between Earth and Hollywood.
The screenplay, by I. Marlene King and Amy B. Harris, borrows from Craig
Lucas’ “Prelude to a Kiss,” but not enough to be either liable or coherent.
Lohan plays Ashley, a young PR agent whose luck has been noticed by her
friends. If she forgets her umbrella, it stops raining the minute she steps
outside. Meanwhile, poor Jake (Chris Pine), on the other side of town, has only
bad luck. Everything he touches turns to disaster.
So one day the two meet at a party, get close and kiss — and in that
second, their luck switches. Her life and career immediately start going down
the toilet, and he gets his band a major recording contract. Within days, he
has a huge apartment and goes from looking like a loser to looking like a
young, handsome success.
That’s the scenario. Here are the problems: Ashley is not a bad person, so
we don’t enjoy watching her suffer. Nor is Lohan a particularly gifted physical
comic, so it’s not fun watching her taking pratfalls or trying to keep the suds
from overflowing the washing machine (yes, that old gag). At the same time,
Ashley is not so nice that we want her to kiss Jake and take away his luck.
He’s a great guy. People depend on him, and he’s doing good things. Besides, he
has only been lucky for a few days, while she has been lucky all her life.
Such a zero-sum game is not exactly appetizing in a comedy. The picture
gives us two protagonists and sets up a situation in which only one of them can
have a decent life. Then, having devised this sour souffle, the screenwriters
find no adjustment to make it palatable. The resolution is flip, at best.
The screenwriters can’t joke their way out of this bind. Director Donald
Petrie and the actors can’t charm their way out, either, though Pine (Jake)
really is charming and, here and there, Lohan shows signs that she might really
be an actress. Maybe a good one. But to say the least, “Just My Luck” is not a
flattering showcase.
– Advisory: This film contains some mild sex talk.
E-mail Mick LaSalle at mlasalle@sfchronicle.com.