Lucky

Two years since the #MeToo Movement began, we’re naturally starting to see many filmmakers probe into issues of sexual assault, trauma, and other issues brought to light by the movement. Yet it takes a special talent to tell this story in a new and compelling way.

Enter director Natasha Kermani and writer/star Brea Grant. Their first feature collaboration, Lucky, stars Brea as Author May Ryer, a self-proclaimed independent woman who finds herself the victim of a home intruder one evening. When she first sees the man in the plastic mask outside her window, she wakes her husband in a panic. Her husband, however, is unperturbed, because this same intruder comes to their home every night, the couple fights him, he disappears, and then the cycle begins again.

It’s a shocking and absorbing premise from the get-go, one that continues to fall deeper into a rabbit hole of absurdity and confusion for May. The metaphor at the heart of the story is spelled out loud and clear in a way that shakes with valid, well-earned feminist frustration. For eons, women have been subjected to threats and attacks by men, ignored when bringing these threats to light, and forced to relive similar harassments daily. When we seek help, we find ourselves thrust into a maze of bureaucratic barriers, doubts of our sanity, and challenges to our independence (“why wasn’t your husband there to protect you?” is asked several times in the film). Kermani and Grant have undoubtedly heightened the world of their film beyond reality, but ultimately the story doesn’t feel so far-fetched, and it is that very balance of surreality and somber truth that makes Lucky echo in your brain long after you’ve viewed it.