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LUCY YOU
STARRING Eric Bana, Robert Duvall and Drew Barrymore
DIRECTED BY Curtis Hanson
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Early on in Lucky You, career card shark Huck Cheever (Eric Bana) explains to his new love interest Billie Offer (Drew Barrymore) that the key to poker is not letting the other players know when you have a good hand. That must be the same advice the film’s producers gave its marketing team. All the publicity for Lucky You would have you believe this is a syrupy story of a compulsive gambler who learns that the love of a good woman is worth more than winning a good hand. Mercifully, that’s only the subplot.
Instead, the film focuses on Huck and the strained relationship he has with his poker-playing dad (Robert Duvall). Hank spent his whole life living in the shadow of a man who chose cards over family and, ironically, Huck has done much the same thing. Now, the Cheever’s strained relationship is pulled even tighter as they both compete in the world series of poker.
Exploring the father-son dynamic is nothing new, nor is putting compulsive, destructive behaviour on display, but in Lucky You the performances bluff their way through the script’s shortcomings. Bana smoulders with the restrained intensity of an early Richard Gere, the difference being that Bana can actually act. Duvall is a screen legend who could have easily phoned in a performance but instead antes up, playing L.C. Cheever with enough ego and sympathy to make him complex. In fact, it’s only Barrymore who should throw in her hand. Her flippant, cutesy performance is wildly out of step with Lucky You and she can’t sell even one line.
Barrymore isn’t the only weak link in Lucky You, though. The script, as you might expect, is littered with card-table philosophy of all kinds, and cliché is dealt in every hand. That said, director Curtis Hansen manages to make it work by sitting back and letting the actors do what they do best. Almost half the film’s running time is spent at the poker table and between the checking of cards, the tossing of chips and the wary glances between opponents, the film could have been a dull, mantra-like exercise in repetition. However, in the hands of Bana and Duvall, Lucky You is not only a great familial cautionary tale but also an intriguing look at a world few of us ever get to see. |
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