In "Lucky," Brea Grant writes herself an excellent role as a woman on the edge. Directed with increasingly disturbing fantasy by Natasha Kermani, Brea Grant's May fights the same man, every day.
Unlike similar movies in the time loop genre ("Happy Death Day," "Groundhog Day"), "Lucky" may repeat scenes, but this is not as simple as time resetting. Although events occur repeatedly, the man who comes to kill her everyday also appears to learn how to best attack her, and every day May wears new scars from her fights. The man, however, is never injured.
The interesting angle here is, May is as out of the loop as we are. Except everyone else seems to know what's up. "Your lucky he didn't kill you," is a repeated refrain. The violent evenings apparently just a trivial occurence, just another thing a woman has to deal with and like it. When her husband decides to up and leave after she challenges his lack of concern, May finds herself having no one to turn to but herself. Even other women are dodging helping her, besides offering platitudes. Worse, they won't talk about the scars they have, and their quiet glances at May suggest they know something, and are suprised she hasn't gotten it yet.
This creates a level of frustration throughout, which is piled on after every attack. It's a difficult watch. Where "Happy Death Day" found humour in its protagonist dying every day, May is not so resigned to giving up, and so the stakes are considerably higher. "I don't deserve this," she eventually sighs, seemingly resigned to being murdered, before getting up again to face the man for what could be the 100th time.
Besides the bonkers moments which continue to increase in nuttiness as the attacks continue, the film finds a lot to say about "going it alone" as a woman. May may have written a self-help book about toughing it out, but she's shocked when she stumbles into a carpark to discover she's not alone in being a victim. However, for all intents and purposes, she may as well be. No one wants to talk about their trauma. No one wants to find ways to better their lives, or challenge the systems. May, for all her buzzwords and power phrases (hilariously even using them against the man one night before launching a full on assault), can't seem to galvanise herself to work with others.
Shudder has had a stellar output of horror recently, and "Lucky" adds wonderfully to their collection. A confusing, frustrating, meaty watch.