Lucky review – Anya Taylor-Joy’s daft thriller is classic summer viewing
This series about a conwoman fleeing for her life is packed with explosions and preposterous coincidences. It’s bunkum with bells on – but who can resist it in this heat?
Luciana “Lucky” Armstrong (Anya Taylor‑Joy) is on the run, scampering across the US in her fashionably rumpled sateen blouson and prompting much fist-shaking from the hapless feds on her tail. “Lucky!” they bellow, cheeks puffing in disbelief as the incorrigible grifter bounds across the roofs of parked lorries, wriggles out of an exploding car, scams a sobbing gran and sets fire to a goon’s cowboy boots. “Lucky?! Stop!” But, no, too late, she’s off again; capering, conning and smirking her way through the Apple TV crime thriller that bears her pointedly ambiguous nickname.
Based on Marissa Stapley’s bestselling novel, the story follows thus: after her boyfriend has made off with the proceeds of their multimillion-dollar heist, our penniless protagonist finds herself pursued by the FBI and a ruthless crime boss determined to relieve the duo of their ill-gotten spoils.
Advising Lucky on her next move(s) is her jail-based dad, John (Timothy Olyphant), a gum-chewing recidivist whose blithe attempts to manipulate the aforementioned crime boss are partly responsible for his daughter’s predicament.
John – or rather “Jaaaahn”; his approach to vowels is as elastic as his morals – swans around prison in a tiny vest and says things like: “Every person’s got a rhythm. If you can learn to play it, you can make ’em dance.” He is a berk. Alas, Lucky appears blind to such berkery and her lifelong attachment to Dad’s array of crime tips (“read the room”, “trust no one”) leads to much forehead-slapping and general irritation.
Can Lucky outrun her past? Will Jaaaahn acknowledge his daughter’s need for independence and finally release her into a future free of having to continuously set fire to goons’ cowboy boots? Let us contemplate these not particularly interesting questions over the course of seven 48-minute episodes plus ad breaks.
The nonsense begins in Las Vegas. Following a night of post-heist celebrations with her bull-necked beau, Cary (Drew Starkey), Lucky awakes to an empty bed. Where is the hunk? And, more pertinently, what has he done with a) their suitcase of stolen cash and b) the shimmering future he promised our elfin heroine? Soon we are pounding after Lucky as she sprints across the US in search of c) the answers to these stumpers and, ultimately, d) herself.
In hot – or at least warm – pursuit are doughty Agent Rand (a wonderfully world-weary Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor) and, separately, Cary’s formidable mob leader mother, Priscilla (Annette Bening, also very good indeed). What follows is essentially a series-long chase scene.
Whoosh, there goes Lucky, darting through a swarm of cops while they busy themselves with a pair of conveniently yobbish teens. Wheeee, and she’s off again, escaping through a bedroom window mere inches from an astonishingly slow‑moving Agent Rand.
“How can someone so small cause so much trouble?” splutters an officer. Everyone shakes their head and sighs, as if they were dealing with a mischief‑prone pomeranian rather than a swindler who thinks nothing of plunging a screwdriver into a gangster’s ear canal.
The upshot? Tosh. Twaddle. Bunkum with bells on. But this is not the problem. The problem with Lucky (the series) is that it refuses to commit to its nonsense. It wants more. It wants its unexplained explosions and preposterous coincidences, but it also wants to be seen to explore serious stuff. Stuff like the nature of victimhood and the way society is so quick to condemn women who betray other women, no matter the circumstances. But it can’t seem to commit to these, either!
And, lo, the tone skitters and flails like a baby giraffe on an ice rink.
The script doesn’t help. Nor does the theme tune, which is performed by Fiona Apple in the manner of a blunderbussed elk.
But, still. It’s summer. Our energies have sagged like hastily loosened slacks at a poolside buffet. Resistance feels like too much effort.
So, let’s raise our Slush Puppie to the good bits (Ellis‑Taylor, Bening, the sateen blouson). And let’s quietly flee through the nearest window from the rest.
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