Just My Luck

Luck be a giggly lady

By Mark Ezra Stokes
5-16-06

I was a child during the first Mary-Kate and Olsen craze. This was toward the end of their Full House career, and they were queens of the straight-to-video empire. I cringed whenever visiting my grandmother’s house with my younger cousin present, because I knew that, rather than spending some quality time with He-Man, the Smurfs or G.I. Joe, I’d spend hours on end tapping my foot while she watched Mary-Kate and Ashley Visit Grandma, or Mary-Kate and Ashley Save Christmas, or Mary-Kate and Ashley Brush Their Teeth. Though I never understood the joy in watching an annoying pair of twins spouting badly written catchphrases while being pursued by another pair of bumbling criminals, my cousin ate it up. And now, thanks to my cousin and millions in her demographic, Mary-Kate and Ashley are multi-millionaires. Lindsay Lohan, though nearly out of her teens now at age 19, seems to have been taking notes, and her latest film, Just My Luck, fits nicely alongside her other romantic comedies that involve luck, fate and coincidence.

Just My Luck (rated PG-13 for some sexual dialogue) follows always-lucky Ashley Albright (Lohan) as she climbs higher and higher into the corporate world, with no effort at all. At the same time, Jake Hardin (Chris Pine) is just trying to climb out of his janitorial job with all the effort he can muster, but to no avail. Luck changes, however, when they meet at a masquerade ball and, for no other reason than to advance the plot, kiss 10 seconds after meeting one other. As we all know, luck is a communicable disease (it might help to tell that to your superstitious preteens), so their luck is naturally swapped. Immediately, she is thrown in jail, and he becomes manager for the hottest new pop-rock band, McFly (a real-life band that owes its agent big-time for getting it this much publicity). Realizing that her bad luck had been brought on by the kiss, Ashley decides to hunt down everyone who fits the profile of her masked dancer, hoping to reverse the curse by kissing the same guy a second time.

Though the idea of corporate executives teetering around New York and giggling about cute guys may seem implausible to anyone outside of Lohan’s social circles, the film isn’t completely unbearable. Behind the fake tans and overpriced outfits, there lies a deep, existential question: Is there something out there, beyond our control, which governs our lives?

Just My Luck seems to hint that there is—though Ashley and Jake admit at one point they don’t know exactly what to call it. The film also seems to say that there’s nothing we can do to make luck work entirely for us. Instead, we must learn to appreciate the good things and simply accommodate for the bad things. Just My Luck also provides an expert on all things cosmic in Madame Z (Tovah Feldshuh), the fortuneteller who can decipher the universe’s mysteries through her trusty Tarot deck. But can we be satisfied with this answer of “accommodation” when really bad things happen—those things that involve more than doggy poo or soapsuds?

For the Christian, assurance during the “bad luck” times comes in an alliance with a deity who is less fickle than luck—more personable than fate. Though Christians usually go through the same amount of hardships as non-Christians, the knowledge of God’s interest in their lives provides a hope and sustenance beyond reason. And though the Christian’s cosmic force has been known to interact personally in the lives of those in His care, He also provides his own “experts on all things cosmic” in pastors, church leaders and mature Christians, and He provides a guide to the “universe’s mysteries” in the Bible.

Just My Luck is a fable aimed at the typical American teenaged girl. Though some of its actors tend to overact at times and both of the leads seem absolutely exhausted throughout the whole film, it has moments of “cute” comedy that even an adult can enjoy without too much involuntary gagging. Like many of today’s films, it opens doors to weightier questions than the typical, “How can I get my hair like Lindsay’s?” or “Where can I get a poster of him in a tank top so I can hang it on my wall?” If we’re “lucky,” such questions can lead to tackling some serious issues about what or who controls our lives.