June 2004

With a Little Luck,
Anything can Happen

Peter Wellington film brings together hockey and gambling

Lee Laborde
Excalibur, York University

TORONTO (CUP)—Have
you ever looked up to the
heavens and pleaded for your
just due?“How much bad luck
or lack thereof qualifies you for
fortune’s rehab program for
the down and out?

In Peter Wellington's new
movie Luck, these questions
are explored in the unlikeliest
of times and circumstances.

Ir: is” 1972 © and?? phe
Canadian/Soviet hockey series
is the backdrop for the entire
Canadian hockey-loving pop-
ulation. In the forefront is a
group of roommates trying
frantically to hit their lucky
streak—at the racetrack, at the
casino, or by winning the girl
of their dreams.

Throw in Sarah Polley, one
of Canada’s most talented
actors; half of the former
Smashing Pumpkins; and an
award for best feature film at
this year’s South by South
West festival in Texas, and
you've got an interesting mix
of Canadian lore, budding tal-
ent, and a great story.

Speaking with writer/direc-
tor Wellington in downtown
Toronto, he explains how the
marriage between the most cel-
ebrated sporting event in
Canadian history and his story
about a circle of friends who
get in over their heads in the
cut-throat world of gambling
came about.

“Tt was a just a lucky thing,”
muses Wellington. “I knew |
wanted to do a gambling story
and I was sitting at a bar and
an ad for the anniversary of the
series came on and a light bulb
sort of went off.”

Although Wellington was
young and most likely tucked
away in bed before the games
were completed, the series still

holds a legendary status that
needed recounting.

“I am of the vantage that
that was one of the single best
moments in our country’s his-
tory, so I knew it as a myth and
it struck me as fantastic that no
one’s used it before, it seems
like it was just sitting there,”
he remarks.

Luck is a movie that asks if
life is a force of will or just a
cruel illusion to induce a false
sense of hope. While the
Canadians and Soviets were
doing battle on the ice, a group
of roommates, led by Shane
(Luke Kirby) decide to take
their recreational love of gam-
bling to another level by
employing themselves as a
bunch of sure-thing bookies.
The scheme seemed fail-safe
considering they were betting
against the underdog
Canadians, while die-hard
Team Canada fans could not
bring themselves to bet against
their team even though they
looked completely  over-
matched against the Soviets.

But alas, despite their best
efforts to quell the tide of bad
luck, Shane and his buddies
find themselves helpless in the
wake of their slipping fortune.
The love story between Shane
and Margaret (Sarah Polley)
increases the stakes and makes
the enticing decision of going
for the big one or just breaking
even that much more com-
pelling.

“T had male roommates and
one was an inveterate gambler,
a good friend, and I experi-
enced getting creamed and
winning both because of my
friendship with this guy,”
explains Wellington as he
recounts his own personal con-
nection with the story. “I
learned how to connect what
happened with gambling with

a sense of entitlement or feel-

ing whether or not youre hard
done by.”

Although the symptoms of
Shane’s gambling addiction are
there, it is his infatuation with
Polley’s Margaret that pushes
him over the edge to seek the
comfort of the blackjack
tables.

With her highly publicized
turn as a zombie killer in
Dawn of the Dead, this is
another example of Polley
doing what she wants while
avoiding the allure of becom-
ing another successful actor
with no real substance like so
many of her once-promising
peers.

“Sarah Polley is the patron
saint of doing whatever the
hell you want,” says
Wellington with pride.

The film is complemented
by an outstanding soundtrack
scored by Melissa Auf der
Maur (former bassist for
Hole/Smashing Pumpkins and
current solo artist) and James
Iha (former guitarist for
Smashing Pumpkins and cur-
rent guitarist for A Perfect
Circle). They provide perfect
forgeries of some classic *70s
tunes, which perfectly comple-
ment the mood and tempo of
the film.

As one can expect from a
story line centred around the
unpredictability of luck, you
never know what is going to
happen, except that the
Canadian hockey team wins
the series in the end. There is a
wicked dramatic irony at play
throughout the movie because
we know the outcome of the
series, which causes some
cringing moments with every
bad bet.

What we learn in the end is
that it is the journey that
makes the person, not the final
destination—a_ lesson that
many of us can benefit from.

& Entertainment

 

 

 

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