“Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die” is the craziest, weirdest, and deepest yet most representative of our days’ dark comedy of the year. It is absolutely exhilarating!
The well-structured dark comedy seamlessly blends sci-fi, drama, and humor, reflecting on hard-to-solve contemporary concerns, such as teens’ cellphone addiction, oblique law enforcement, and job placement and fulfillment. As the threat of rogue AI and, mostly, the loss of human connection looms, the film places everything in a wild, video-game-like setting.
The story opens with the arrival of a vagrant man who creates chaos at a famous dinner in West Hollywood. He is The Man from the Future, played by the extraordinarily skilled Academy Award-winning actor Sam Rockwell (“Three Billboards Outside of Ebbing, Missouri,” “Vice,” and “Napoleon Dynamite”). This role seems tailor-made for his persona.
The disturbing-the-peace scene echoes the openings of Quentin Tarantino’s “Pulp Fiction” and “Reservoir Dogs.” “Training Day” and “Se7en” are also notorious for their dining conversations, but this is Los Angeles, where great stories made in the city start at a traditional American dinner.
The Man from the Future clearly states that it was not a robbery, but he threatens to blow himself and everyone up if they don’t cooperate, which is even worse. He adds, “Somewhere inside of you, you know the way things are, the way they are heading, the way people are with each other. You know the world is going to shit. What means a damn is you people choosing to come alone for this ride, because you see the writing on the wall, and you’re ready to wake up and do something about it. There is a chance you can die tonight, but I truly believe that you could be the group that saves the “f” world.”
He kidnaps selected diners and takes them to familiar places, where each confronts their nemesis in hallucinatory visions, tying into the mission’s goal: to save humanity by saving themselves.
The first twisted challenge begins at a high school with a basic-level entry, where two teachers, Janet and Mark (Zazie Beetz and Michael Peña), struggle to escape an army of student sleepwalkers controlled by their cellphones.
The difficulty continues to escalate at the second level, where Ingrid (Haley Lu Richardson), a professional princess at children’s parties who is allergic to cellphones and electronic devices, is trying to regain self-esteem while in denial, trapped in the fairy-tale fantasy she created about her crazy boyfriend, who is also controlled by VR goggles. For her, an alternative reality is within reach.
Actress Juno Temple plays Susan; her story is sad and emotionally disturbing regarding school mass shootings in American reality, where she loses her brilliant son. Soon, Actress Juno Temple plays Susan; her story is sad and emotionally disturbing in the context of American reality, where she loses her brilliant son to a school mass shooting. Soon, the corporate system pressures her into replacing her son with an android replica of the teenager, without his heart. the teenager, without his heart.
The latest directorial work by the talented, Academy Award-winning filmmaker, Gore Verbinski (“Pirates of the Caribbean” series, “Rango,” “The Ring,” “The Mexican”), “Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die,” takes a riskier, more auteur-driven approach, opting for an experimental, avant-garde style that feels fresh and original.
The video game’s structure seems to be inspired by “Super Mario Bros. Movie,” but it’s less noisy and colorful. It still delivers innovative visuals and a fluid narrative, making it a delight for baby boomers and appealing to Gen Z as well.
The hyper-dramatic climax brings all generations together, heightening the tension to its peak in a video game-like setting with hard-to-believe fantasy elements, where computers and divines take control, and everything is possible.
French director Quentin Dupieux has spent the past couple of decades on quirky projects that explore alternative realities, including “Smoking Causes Coughing,” “Wrong,” “Reality,” and “Deerskin.” Another example of an immediate alternative reality is David Cronenberg’s “The Shrouds,” in which he delves into a mortuary controlled by IA and a smart network of video cameras that record the body’s decomposition in real time.
“Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die” is a highly satisfying dark comedy that raises important existential questions: Are you part of the problem or the solution? “You haven’t figured it out, have you?” At some point, how optimistic can we be when we have to consider where our society is headed?
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