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Luck Be a Lohan Tonight

By Tricia Olszewski
Washington City Paper | May 19, 2006
And you thought product placement was annoying—now, apparently, tween movies are the new MySpace. Just My Luck is less the latest Lindsay Lohan vehicle than a showcase for Britpop contender McFly. Presumably, the sometimes-skeletal, sometimes-curvy tabloid darling is here just to show what good-looking friends those perfectly mussed boys in the band have. And depending on your tolerance for marketing, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. The relatively cute, if poorly executed, story line concerns a successful/lucky publicist, Ashley (surprisingly serviceable Lohan), who unknowingly transfers her good fortune when she kisses an unsuccessful/hexed band manager, Jake (generic Chris Pine). Pre-kiss, there’s a relentless parade of happy and pitiable things that befall these two characters, underscoring their contrasting cosmic lots to a maddening degree. Post-kiss isn’t much different—except, y’know, it’s all reversed. But Jake’s heretofore failed attempt to advance the career of the four-piece McFly occasionally brings Just My Luck to life. For one, label honcho Damon Phillips (Faizon Love) gets the only mildly funny dialogue in I. Marlene King and Amy B. Harris’ script (based on a story by King and, incredibly, three others). For another, McFly’s two “Beatles meet blink-182” songs are bright, radio-friendly, and not half-bad. There’s a decent drummer joke, too: The movie’s best line is when a sound guy is asked if he’s seen the band’s percussionist and responds, “I don’t know, they all look the same to me.” Co-starring are Ashley’s chic wardrobe and the fabulous excesses typical of big-time New York promotion parties, as well as the perks showered on the moment’s new hot group, including a giant, fantabulous, only-in-the-movies apartment. Naturally, somewhere in Just My Luck are lessons about love, selflessness, and the whole pull-your-sorry-ass-up-by-your-bootstraps thing—though how important is the latter in a world in which fortunes can be reversed by supernatural intervention? Better not to think about such things—the flick is much more enjoyable when you brainlessly focus on McFly’s sunniness and the lure of all the drool-worthy pretty things. A note to the marketeers, though: Because Lohan’s getting her arms back somehow resulted in her complexion turning a bizarre sorta orange, those don’t include the star.
Tags: Donald Petrie, Just My Luck

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