Just My Luck (2006) -
Ashley is known as the luckiest woman around. After a chance encounter with an unlucky young man, however, she realises that she's swapped her fortune for his.
The first element that is similar to ours is the theme of luck. The main plot of Just My Luck focuses on the main character, Ashley, possessing incredible luck. She always wins on scratch cards, it never rains on her and she has an accomplished job. This can clearly be linked to our main character, Sarah, who has lots of luck throughout her teenage years. She receives good exam results, gets onto the college course she wants and has the perfect relationship.
Just My Luck:
A common element between our film and Just My Luck is the idea of an individual possessing luck and then passing it on or losing it. In Just My Luck, Ashley owns the luck at the beginning of the film. Nothing goes wrong for her and she is incredibly lucky. However, as the story develops she meets Jake, an unlucky guy, and kisses him. When this takes place her luck swaps to him. Jake now becomes the lucky one and Ashley gets the harsh reality of having no luck at all. She ends up breaking her shoe, ripping her dress, choking and electrocuting herself, among many other negative events.This is similar to our film. Sarah possesses the luck from the beginning, however, as the story progresses she misplaces her lucky penny and her luck vanishes. Once her luck is gone, everything goes wrong. She falls out with her friend, she loses her Ipod and money and her mum accuses her of being a thief, along with standing in a puddle.
Just My Luck:
Another similarity is the idea of luck transferring between characters. In Just My Luck, Ashley's luck is transferred between her and Jake when they kiss. This suggests that it isn't really genetic or from any object, it is actually just 'lucky' and random that she has the luck. We have a similar idea in our film. Sarah's luck is passed onto her by her Grandma. However, instead of it being genetic or random her luck comes from the penny.
Just My Luck:
Another likeness between both films is the realisation by the main character at the end of the film. Throughout Just My Luck, Ashley is determined to keep her luck. However, by the end she realises that the luck is not important, and other things are more significant. She decides to let Jake keep it. However, he does not want it either. The then decided to pass onto his little sister Katy (who is extremely unlucky) and they both become averagely lucky. This is a good way to end a film, as the main character learns from their mistakes and represents a moral. This is also similar to our film, as Sarah comes to a realisation on herself at the end of our film. However, differently, Sarah's lucky penny brings her the luck of finding what her boyfriend's really like by the end. Although the penny brought her no luck when she misplaced it, it brought her overall luck as it leads her to Sam. Therefore, suggesting that whilst the materialistic side of the luck is good, it is also good for removing the bad - in this case, Sam - out of her life.
Just My Luck:
Although our film idea shares many similarities with Just My Luck, we still managed to maintain originality. Our film significantly differs from Just My Luck as the luck comes from a lucky penny. This fortune is passed on from her Grandma, to Sarah and whenever she has the lucky penny, lucky things happen to her. In Just My Luck there is no lucky object, it is purely Ashley's luck that she then passes on to Jake, and then Katy. In addition, at no point throughout our film does the lucky penny swap to Sam. Because he is the corrupt character, he does not receive any of the penny's luck, instead it shows his true colours to Sarah. Moreover, our main character, Sarah - at first - is sceptical of the penny's fortune. She doesn't believe it and things everything that happens is just chance or coincidence. This contrasts with Ashley's character, who clearly knows of her luck, but just accepts it as natural and isn't any different from anybody else.
Just My Luck was a good film to build our initial idea around as it has several elements that would make a good lucky film. Some elements that we took inspiration from were the 'lucky' events that happen to Ashley, such as finding money and winning on scratch-cards and Ashley's 'unlucky' events such as breaking her shoe and electrocuting herself. This inspiration, encouraged us to include similar events such as Sarah getting outstanding exam results and then her falling out with her best friend.
