“Just My Luck”

20th Century Fox

Directed by Donald Petrie

Written by I. Marlene King and Amy Harris

Starring: Lindsay Lohan, Chris Pine, Samaire Armstrong, Bree Turner, Faizon Love and Missi Pyle

Rated PG-13/100 min.

Opened May 12, 2006

Two out of four stars

An online critic named PirateFear has this to say about “Just My Luck,” Lindsay Lohan’s latest movie:

“It alludes to deeper thoughts and emotions (more) than any film has dared to aim for in the past 50 years. The educated among you will spot the references to higher philosophical planes (that are) given weight by Lohan’s performance.”

Now, I don’t know how seriously we can take the words of a guy who goes by the screen name “PirateFear,” but his musings have put me in a certain frame of mind as I sit down to write my own thoughts about Lohan’s newest movie.

Luck is initially defined in Donald Petrie’s movie as the ability to stop the rain with your sunny disposition, to hail a New York taxi in 2.5 seconds and to find a $10 bill stuck to the bottom of your shoe.

This describes the life of Ashley Albright (Lohan), whose life goes dark after she kisses a mysterious man at a masquerade ball. She loses her cushy promotional job, her swank apartment floods and-omigawd!-she gets a zit.

But consider this: Ashley’s tremendous streak of bad luck leads her into the sensitive arms of Jake Hardin (Chris Pine), which isn’t bad luck at all. Now she has a cute, successful guy in her life-a guy who is all the more successful after kissing a mysterious woman at a masquerade ball. Hmm?

Did Ashley and Jake swap more than spit during that fateful kiss? Who was the lucky one at that moment? Her? Him? Both of them?

Luck is an elusive thing to define in this movie. One must accept a multi-layered definition, in which such things as advantage and wants and needs are factored in. A long-term examination of cause and effect is necessary if we are to determine if Ashley’s former life was indeed “lucky”-but by whose definition?

Ah. There’s the rub.

So perhaps PirateFear is correct when he says that “Just My Luck” is the most daring philosophical essay of the past 50 years. Or perhaps, like me, he’s simply entertaining himself instead of seriously writing about a movie that is devoid of laughs, devoid of romantic tension and devoid of any human behavior that exists outside of the imaginations of teen girls.

I think I’ve just pinpointed the audience for this movie. Was that ever in question?