THE LUCKIEST MAN IN AMERICA joins a recent trend of films about specific incidents on old US TV shows. Although it doesn’t do too much with its vintage aesthetic, it’s an entertaining film that gets by on the ambiguous charm of Paul Walter Hauser and the tension it manages to wring out of its small-scale situation.
THE LUCKIEST MAN IN AMERICA adapts the true story of Michael Larson, who appeared on the game show Press Your Luck in 1984 and had an incredible streak of wins in the ‘spin to win’ portion of the game. In this adaptation, Michael (Paul Walter Hauser) is a down-on-his-luck ice cream man who drives his ice cream van right up to CBS Television Studios and successfully cajoles his way into appearing on the show. However, as his winning streak on the show continues, the producers behind the scenes start to wonder if Michael is really that lucky or if something else is going on.
Like Anna Kendrick’s WOMAN OF THE HOUR and Colin & Cameron Cairnes’ LATE NIGHT WITH THE DEVIL, the aesthetic self-consciously emulates the look of 1970s and 1980s US TV shows through period-accurate decor and some scenes with the analogue look of CRT televisions and VHS recordings. The aesthetic nostalgia for this specific 1980s look was also recently used in THE APPRENTICE and, briefly, in THE BRUTALIST – in this case, it’s a fun choice that contributes to placing the film in time, but it does start to feel overused.
The film’s driving force is Paul Walter Hauser, who uses his ability to portray an ambiguous charm to make the character work. Even as we watch him finagle his way onto the show, we’re never quite sure if he’s doing so with the charm of an all-American nice guy or a con man trying to sell us something. Hauser brings a terrific physical performance that puts us in the same position as the show’s producers and crew, who are all wondering who this guy is and what he’s up to.
Hauser’s performance helps to sell the tension of the story’s small-scale situation. The narrative mostly takes place over only a few hours in a single studio during the show’s recording, yet director Samir Oliveros wrings an incredible amount of tension out of it through his staging and cinematography. The myopic focus on this one incident and how it impacts the various people involved shouldn’t work as well as it does. Still, Oliveros wisely doesn’t draw it out too much, doesn’t burden us with too much backstory, and keeps us invested throughout.
Though THE LUCKIEST MAN IN AMERICA alludes to broader themes around media production and how broadcast media edits narratives to cut out the messy humanity of people’s lives, the film focuses on telling an entertaining story and highlighting Hauser’s performance. Beyond that, there’s not much to it, but it doesn’t feel like there needs to be. Sometimes a guy just gets lucky, and that’s all that needs to be said.