Gore Verbinski's latest film, Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die, is a messy but oddly endearing satire that feels like a throwback to when mainstream filmmakers dared to be weird. The film, starring Sam Rockwell as a time-travelling lecturer in a plastic raincoat, takes aim at social media addiction and doomscrolling, but its focus on symptoms rather than causes leaves it ideologically flawed.
Verbinski, known for the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise and the underrated A Cure for Wellness, brings a darker, idiosyncratic streak to this project. The film features a cat-adjacent monster that is so silly it becomes affectionate, and vignettes that feel more potent than the average Black Mirror episode because they release the filmmaker's pent-up frustration rather than trying to impress the audience with cleverness.
The cast includes Zazie Beetz and Michael Peña as married teachers, Juno Temple as a grieving mother, Asim Chaudhry as an Uber driver, and Haley Lu Richardson as a woman allergic to electronics. The script, by Matthew Robinson, haphazardly dishes out backstories for some characters while leaving others out, and the film's structure is jumbled. Yet, there is genuine venom in Verbinski's approach, with scenes that are bleak and mean, such as a company cloning child victims of school shootings for a fee.
Rockwell's typical charm is on display, but as the film gets weirder, it provides evidence for its own thesis: that AI will try to give you everything you ever wanted, but it's all a lie. Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die may turn some audiences away with its provocations, but it is honest in its messiness.
