Lucky

2017 swan song

Rating: 15/20

Plot: Lucky faces off against old age and worries about David Lynch's turtle.

Is there a better send-off for an actor like Harry Dean Stanton than to show him on the big screen doing yoga in his boxers at the age of 90? I don't think so.

Stanton's performance is just about perfect. He could have just showed up with his bones and wrinkles and watered that cactus like he does on the movie poster there and it still would have been perfect. I'm not sure I always like the things his characters say as it's hard to figure out whether this Lucky fellow is supposed to be as wise as those wrinkles might indicate or a guy who can't even complete a crossword puzzle by himself, but the character is too likably-cantankerous to not care about. And when he bursts into a spontaneous song late in the movie, it nearly brought a tear to this unlikably-cantankerous viewer's eyes.

David Lynch plays one of Lucky's friends, an eccentric guy who owns a turtle. Actually, I'm not sure if anybody told David Lynch he was in a movie or not. Maybe he just stumbled in and started talking to the characters as himself.

Touching, ornery, and as incomplete as a human life, this has a little to say about mortality and both higher powers and lower ones. It's profound in a naturalistic and minimalistic ways and is a great swan song for an acting legend.

Fantastic final shot in this one, too!