Based on the true story of long-married couple Jerry and Marge Selbee, who win the lottery and use the money to revive their small town.
Jerry (Bryan Cranston) is forced into retirement and doesn’t know what to do with himself, but he wants a bigger nest egg for his family. One day Jerry discovers a flaw in the lottery and starts to exploit it to help revitalize his town.
Annette Bening is Marge, Jerry’s wife. She is excited that he is finally retiring but disappointed that they are not using their time to be adventurous, which is what she’s craving. Once Jerry reveals that he has been betting and winning at the lottery, she goes all in with helping him.
It’s admirable that Jerry and Marge largely used their winnings to help their community. The performances of Cranston and Bening didn’t stand out but they were serviceable for this film and they had decent chemistry with each other. Other comedic talents such as Rainn Wilson, Larry Wilmore, and Michael McKean also co-star. They don’t have big roles, but it’s nice to see them in their small parts. They add some comedic color to the town but are still largely underdeveloped characters.
Because there are so many comedic actors in this film, I thought that it was supposed to be a comedy. However, it failed to make me laugh and is not very comedic in tone. Rainn Wilson and Larry Wilmore are the only really funny characters in the movie. This film plays a bit more like a drama, which I think was the wrong call as it got boring to me after Jerry and Marge won and travel to Massachusetts for the first time and win the lottery there.
The Harvard kid who also discovers this lottery loophole was annoying. He is a one-note villain archetype of the “tech bro” named Tyler (Uly Schlesinger). The film wants you to take him seriously as an antagonist, but he honestly feels like a whiny kid. It is also never made clear why he wants this lottery money other than to get back at his father for some unknown reason or what he uses the winnings for.
I believe the family dynamic was also underdeveloped. Jerry and Marge have two adult children, but both children have very little screentime with their mother. Jerry’s son feels that he never related much to his dad. I found Jerry and his daughter’s relationship to be unclear, she is only around for a bit.
This is a streaming movie, a Paramount+ original, and while there is nothing wrong with that, there are some connotations that come with that; namely that the movie will be forgettable, which it unfortunately is. I found the story itself to be interesting, but not worthy of a feature film adaptation. It should have just stayed as a news article.
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