[REVIEW] LUCKY (2020): A DARK AND HORRIFYING REFLECTION OF OUR OWN WORLD

 LUCKY (2020)

Director: Natasha Kermani
Writer: Brea Grant 
Stars: Brea Grant, Hunter C. Smith, Kausar Mohammed, Dhruv Uday Singh, Yasmine Al-Bustami

“ I am not lucky I just work really really hard”

The Brea Grant Appreciation Society will come to order

People who are obsessed with horror movies are also obsessed with the people that make them. Many horror fans keep lists of favorite personalities such as Stephen King,  John Carpenter and George Romero to name a few. After watching the excellent 12 Hour Shift, I added the name Brea Grant to my list. Ms Grant is a thought-provoking writer and innovative director. In addition to writing and directing, she is also an exceptional actress, having appeared in several notable films and TV series. The year 2021 is starting out to be a big year for her as well. March of this year will feature the release of two new projects that she has been intimately involved with; she stars in Jill Gevargizian’s The Stylist, and she wrote and starred in director Natasha Kermani’s Lucky (2020).

Brea Grant as May-Photo Credit:Shudder

I have been looking forward to watching Lucky since I heard about it during last year's Fantasia Fest. I was grateful to be given a chance to see it before its March release and to write this review. Lucky is an audacious and unsettling film that delivers plenty of what I love most about the horror genre. It is a dark  and horrifying reflection of our own world that some viewers will find challenging. 

 “I may be better at titles than you”

Lucky is the story of May (Brea Grant), a best-selling self-help author. Fiercely independent, and happily married, the largest conflict in her life is pressure from her agent and publisher who want her writing style to be more "marketable." Her life begins coming apart when a stalker (Hunter C. Smith) begins breaking into her house nightly. As the attacks increase in frequency and violence, she becomes less certain that the the people around her have her best interests at heart.  

Eventually May has to come to terms with understanding that because she is a woman the world is going to be a chaotic and dangerous place for her.  She witnesses countless women struggling with the same masked assailant in a dark parking garage at the film’s terrifying climax. She comes to grips with the fact that there is no rational explanation for what is happening and there is no end in sight for her or any women. Fleeing the garage, she returns home to once again fight her nemesis, this time unmasking him at last. 

 “Every goddamned day.”

Lucky portrays a grim reality that she and women like her are unfairly held responsible for their own problems. Early in the film, May’s fragile husband Ted (Dhruv Uday Singh), abandons her to face her ordeal alone. His rationalization is that she was insensitive to his feelings during a discussion about the intruder when she challenged his lackadaisical reaction. He leaves, saying, “I can’t be with you when you’re like this!” His insecurity overrides May’s safety and calls to mind Margret Atwood's observation, “Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them.”

Hunter C. Smith as The Man-Photo Credit:Shudder

In addition to the physical menace she is subjected to, she must constantly struggle to retain control of her own narrative. She realizes that all achievements in her life have been reduced to a struggle for safety, agency, and validation. In her interactions with police, social workers, EMTs, her agent, and her husband, she is constantly striving to be understood. It is obvious from their attitude and the incorrect assumptions in their replies that none of them are taking her seriously. They constantly rewrite her responses to fit their  preconceived notions of her ordeal. As she tells her assistant Edie (Yasmine Al-Bustami), women must face these struggles ‘Every goddamned day.”

 With scenes like those above, coupled its strong feminist message, Lucky will probably be a divisive film and meet with strong opposition from members of the horror community. Grant and Kermani created a very challenging and confrontational film that many audience members will relate to. Director Kermani calls it a “genre story with real-life horrors just below the surface” and a “nightmarish parallel to the one (world) we live in”

“They’re stubborn and we’re crazy.”

But not everyone wants to hear stories like this and some even question their place in horror. In November of  2019, Joe Bob Briggs tweeted that politics and horror movies do not belong together. Joe Bob’s tweet was a response to the announcement that Rachel Wolf and Sophia Tackal’s Black Christmas remake would be a female created, female centric and feminist-themed slasher. His separating politics from horror exemplifies the paradox of men being willing to discuss a  problem but are not willing see themselves as part of the problem. To bolster this attitude, last year a critic from a well respected magazine unapologetically attempted to dismiss Emerald Fennell’s A Promising Young Woman, another female created film, by unfavorably comparing star Carey Mulligan’s appearance with producer Margot Robbie’s. The implication was A Promising Young Woman might have been a more watchable movie if the latter had been in front of the camera instead of behind it, based on an extremely superficial comparison point. 

Both A Promising Young Woman and Black Christmas showcase a different kind of female protagonist. These women prevail by fighting with their own weapons. Born out of necessity, they must be smarter, more resourceful, and more ruthless because they lack the societal power (and physical strength) of the men who attempt to rape and murder them. Lucky's May is similar to the heroines of the other films. The difference is her opponent isn't confined to a single person or organization. May’s foe is largely undefined yet omnipresent. 

"This Could Be Dangerous For Someone"

 Movies that are  female led, female centric, and feminist themed such as Lucky, A Promising Young Woman, and 2019’s Black Christmas bring to the forefront a different subgenre of horror. These stories are about the horror of living as an oppressed person in a society that works hard to convince the victims their oppression is in their head. Natasha Kermani has said Lucky functions as a mirror of our present world. But it's not a view of the world that many are comfortable with and that alone cements its importance in the genre.

 

The best horror movies are the ones that disrupt, disorient and create chaos among the audience. Such films force the viewer to examine something familiar from a new perspective. This oftentimes illuminates undiscovered faults, blemishes or rotten areas. Lucky did not disappoint in this category. Grant and Kermani strove hard to make a film that would upend viewer’s expectations in order to raise their conscience to a new plateau and force them to look at the familiar from an unfamiliar angle. At least unfamiliar for some of the audience.

Lucky will be available after March 4th on Shudder.