Good Luck Chuck is a 2007 American romantic comedy film starring Jessica Alba and Dane Cook. The premise of the movie is Chuck is a "good luck charm" lover. That is, women will find their "one true love" after having sex with him. He then meets a girl who he thinks is his true love.
The movie began filming in June 2006 in Vancouver and Edmonton, with some scenes shot in Los Angeles. It opened in September 2007, and was heavily panned by critics.
Plot
The movie begins in 1985 in a flashback scene where Chuck (Dane Cook) entered a closet with a goth girl named Anisha (Sasha Pieterse) but refused to have any sexual contact with her while playing seven minutes in heaven at a friend's boy/girl party. In retaliation for having no interest in her, Anisha placed a curse (hex) on him: every single woman he sleeps with will break up with him and meet her soul mate.
Chuck is at the beach with his girlfriend, Carol, having sex. After she performs fellatio she gets mad at Chuck, and they break up. Chuck (Dane Cook), now in his thirties, is running a dentist practice in the same building as his best friend Stu (Dan Fogler), a plastic surgeon. Chuck finds himself unable to tell women he loves them. This leads to an eventual breakup, but soon leads to his ex-girlfriend getting married. At one such wedding, Chuck becomes enamored with Cam Wexler (Jessica Alba), a sometimes clumsy girl who nevertheless appears quite friendly. Chuck tries to ask Cam out on a date, but she gently refuses him.
While working at her habitat for Gentoo penguins, Cam accidentally slips and breaks her tooth. Having Chuck's card in hand, she calls him and he agrees to work on her tooth. After the dental treatment, he asks her to go out with him instead of paying him, but she declines. During the time that Chuck still has eyes for Cam, Stu starts to become convinced that there's something peculiar about Chuck's pattern of girls getting married as soon as he has sex with them. This is only compounded when an article on a dating site tells of Chuck's prowess. Stu eventually convinces Chuck to embrace the (now many) women who visit his practice, arguing that there's nothing better than having a bunch of guilt-free sex. However, after having sex with a bunch of women, Chuck wants to stop and have a serious relationship with Cam. He goes to Cam's workplace to try and ask her out again. She's reluctant to go out with him, but she eventually agrees. They soon develop a strong relationship with each other, that is until Cam tries to have sex with him. Immediately before having sex with Cam, Chuck is informed by Stu that each of the women Chuck slept with has gotten married. Worried that the same thing will happen to Cam, he leaves her.
Worried that the curse is real, Chuck maintains a relationship with Cam via frequent phone conversations. Stu reluctantly convinces Chuck to date and sleep with an extremely overweight and ugly woman called Eleanor Skepple to see if she'll get married afterwards. Chuck tries to get Stu to ask out Eleanor after the deed to see if they get married, hoping that the curse will prove to be false. However, Stu chickens out and only pretends to ask Eleanor out. He tells Chuck that he went out with her and was not going to propose to her. Chuck then runs to Cam's house and has sex with her. Stu ends up telling Chuck that he only pretended to ask out Eleanor. Eleanor ends up getting married to another man and the wedding is seen on the news. Chuck is now convinced that Cam wants to go out with the author of a book about penguins, whom Cam has raved about. Chuck attempts to track down the girl who placed the curse on him when they were kids. Now a happily married woman with a child, the former goth girl tells Chuck that the curse wasn't meant to be real. Still convinced that Cam will date and eventually marry the book author, Chuck tries desperately to get Cam's attention and ask her to marry him. His attempts, though, cause Cam to become convinced he's stalking her and she breaks up with him.
Now deciding to let fate take its course, Chuck puts Cam in touch with the book author, and the two seem to connect instantly (notably, the book author at times appears to be as clumsy as Cam). Stu visits Chuck and convinces him to chase after Cam, who is now headed to Antarctica with the book author. Stu himself winds up engaged with the beautiful Lara who Chuck previously had sex with and is "perfect" for Stu due to her three breasts. After buying $17,412 worth of tickets (since he wasn't sure which flight Cam might have been on), Chuck confronts Cam. Cam reveals that the book author is already married to someone else, and that she's only going for a week - not the 6 months Chuck thought. Chuck hands Cam a ring box, and Cam opens it to reveal a pebble, a reference to the penguin mating ritual in which a male penguin finds a stone and brings it to the female penguin he wants to be with. Meaning, he is asking her to marry him. Cam calls out for Chuck, who left the plane, and Chuck runs back to Cam, the curse having finally been broken (the adult woman who placed the curse on Chuck in the first place (Anisha) is shown to pull out a voodoo doll she placed a pin through the heart of, and pulls the pin out). A year later, they have gotten married (a photo on their nightstand reveals it) they are both in Antarctica together surrounded by penguins, Chuck and Cam kiss, but their tongues get frozen together while they laugh at each other.
Cast
Filmed on location in Canada ( Vancouver;British Columbia and Edmonton;Alberta)
References to other films
Chuck (Dane Cook) can be seen wearing a "Super Club" Baseball cap while playing Frisbee in the park.[when?][citation needed] "Super Club" was the fictional wholesale store that Dane Cook worked for in a previous movie, Employee of the Month.
Soundtrack
The movie soundtrack was released on 18 September 2007 and included the following tracks:
- "I Was Zapped By The Lucky Super Rainbow" (The Flaming Lips)
- "Accident Prone" (The Honorary Title)
- "Good Luck Chuck" (The Dandy Warhols)
- "Love It When You Call" - Cherrytree House Version (The Feeling)
- "Good Weekend" (Art Brut)
- "Hurry Up Let's Go" (Shout Out Louds)
- "Shut Me Out" (Aidan Hawken) - 2:49
- "You're Gonna Get It" (Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings)
- "The Whistle Song" (Pepper)
- "You Might Think" (The Cars)
- "Physical" (Olivia Newton-John)
- "Bela Lugosi's Dead" (Bauhaus)
- "Crazy In Love" (Antique Gold)
Reception
The film was considered one of the worst of all time. According to Rotten Tomatoes, only 5% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 96 reviews.[1] On Metacritic, the film had an average score of 19 out of 100, based on 21 reviews, indicating "extreme dislike or disgust." However, the film has received a cult following on home video.[2] Roger Ebert awarded the film 1 out of 4 stars, branding it "potty-mouthed and brain-damaged", whilst his reviewing partner, Richard Roeper, gave an equally damning review, saying that "There is a scene in this movie where a penguin bites Dane Cook in the crotch. I'd like to find that penguin and buy it a drink."[3][4]
Box office performance
The film was the #2 movie at the U.S. box office in its opening weekend, grossing $13.6 million in 2,612 theaters.[5][6]. The film went on to have a total box office tally of approximately $35 million U.S. and $24 million foreign according to boxofficemojo.com.
References
External links
