Parents' Guide to The Luckiest Man in America

This drama, based loosely on a true story, doesn't have a whole lot of dramatic momentum, but as it goes on, intriguing nuances in character and theme start to open up. As The Luckiest Man in America starts, Michael Larson is a bit one-note, a scruffy sad sack with a hairstyle and beard that are a little too much even for the 1980s. And the other characters rush around, doing their jobs without revealing much personality. Even Walton Goggins as Press Your Luck host Peter Tomarken comes across mainly as smarmy and insincere. (By contrast, other movies that have gone behind the scenes of TV productions, like the excellent September 5 and Late Night with the Devil, have been unexpectedly rich in character.)

For a while, there's not much to root for. But things slowly evolve. We learn more about Michael and what's at stake for him. We see others reacting to him both positively and negatively, rounding him out. And Bill Carruthers reveals a side of himself that casts a new light on the movie's whole dynamic. But most of all, there's the question of whether Michael is actually cheating; the answer isn't as cut-and-dried as it may seem. The Luckiest Man in America closes with a very moving image—upended only by some real-life archival TV footage during the end credits—that exposes the bittersweet irony of its title.