ALSO SHOWING

Lucky

There is a moment at the close of Lucky where Harry Dean Stanton looks right into the camera, and connects with each and every one of us, smiling in solace without a word.

It is a beguiling and warming few seconds and a fine way to remember the great Hollywood icon as he takes one of his last major curtain calls.

Aged 90 when filming commenced, Stanton is front and centre as the titular oldtimer in a one-horse town in the Deep South.

He moves about with habit and method, between his living room, the local diner and a bar, doing his crossword, smoking American Spirits and ruminating on life and death with the locals who know him.

Familiar faces and contemporaries of Stanton abound. David Lynch plays a dapper barfly. Ed Begley Jr is Lucky’s baffled GP. Stanton’s Alien co-star Tom Skerritt plays a retired marine.

This is Stanton’s monument, however. John Carroll Lynch shoots that hangdog face with the sunset blush of a western hero, even though Lucky’s only real mission in these final days is to face into that sunset with dignity and acceptance. Some of the sequences and dialogue are a little stagey, perhaps, but what is more important is that this is an elegant portrayal of a character too often consigned to the role of supporting cast.

That it is being conveyed to us by an actor in the winter of their own life means that so many elusive corners are filled in with added gravity.