
Frame from the movie "How to become a millionaire." Source: Film.ru
I like the original name "The happiest person in America" more, it has the bitterness of irony in it.
The film is based on the real story of Michael Larson, who in 1984 managed to win more than $ 110,000 in one of the issues of the Press Your Luck game show. But in reality, luck had nothing to do with this: Larson (Paul Walter Huzer) remembered the main templates on the blinking lights of the scoreboard (it turned out that there were only five), famously avoided the blows of the Red Monster “Oblom”, which was around all points, and won as a result an unprecedented amount.
The story of Larson has already been turned into a couple of documentaries, a graphic novel, and now - the playful cinema that connects the psychodrama with the comedy and restores the chain of obvious and completely incredible events, when for almost 40 minutes the game of a bearded freak pented all America to the screens.
During the record of the show, the producers (one of them plays David Stratern) experience a whole gamut of feelings: ironic and arrogant first in relation to this village simpleton, which is replacing air conditioners and leads a fragon with ice cream, gradually they fall into panic. They begin a hysterical internal investigation, are ready to interrupt the program literally every time the player presses the red button and shouts “Stop!”, Winning huge amounts.

This is impossible! Is he crazy? But how?
Against Larson is his insignificant past. Yes, the driver of the van, miraculously climbed onto the show, poverty, like a church rat.
In order to come on an entry, I had to urgently rent a tuxedo in a second-hand, prudently torn off in the fitting button to knock down a penny price.
He is not a fraudster. He is from the breed "Gol to invented cunning." He is a man of curb, who spent strength and time to calculate his luck and tear it out of fate. I remembered all possible combinations. I outparted a television show, all this multi -sized magnificent car with a pipipax laughter and stormy applause under the conduct of assistants.
The nickname "The Happy Man" was hastily dictated by panicing producers behind the scenes, hoping to promote their loss - to win. Since they are redesigned, we must put this loss in the image of the program. Their show is the most folk, here ordinary people in front of millions become millionaires! The most popular of modern ideas is to turn the poor into a rich man by click! Money on a plate with a blue tub will bring you a happy button, a “prize” sector on the drum. If you want to get rich - go to the "Field of Miracles".
This story is more than the plot about the exceptional case, about the provincial Fricke that deceived the corporation. She is about an American myth who promises a smile of good luck on 32 teeth, sparkling a jackpot. About the myth who feeds the TV and Hollywood millions.
About myth on clay legs. And just as in the masterpiece of Pollak “driven horses are shot, isn't it?”, In a moderately talented, but living and reliable film of Olivers, the viewer remains with the enduring feeling of bitterness.

The main advantage of this movie is Paul Walter Hauser (Richard Juella, “Tonya Against All”, “Black Bird”). It is impossible to break away from him. How he squints his eyes when the run of lights on the score is launched, this is some incomprehensible prohibitive concentration. Suddenly he throws his head back, shouts - and as if rushing into cold water: "Stop!" This is intoxication by the game, gamer ecstasy. Psychologists call such an immersion the state of the “large stream”, complete concentration, immersion, individual from the world, the ability to achieve previously unprecedented results. The Hauser uses the widest palette of open emotions (from laughter to tears) and the finest nuance. He floats freely in the waves of tragicomedy. And his ridiculous, in a tuxedo with a butterfly and inappropriate shorts, Larson causes polar reactions in us: from irony, alert (there is something dark, hidden in his Larson)-to the great sympathy for this, not the most happy little person who wakes up from the smell of overwork and ovarian every morning. Who did 2280 miles to just have breakfast with his family.

The king is played by a retinue (of course, here the opposite is true: “little man” is played by successful bosses-producers). David Stratern (“Miami Police”, “The Secrets of Los Angelos”) is an experienced fox, the head of the show, who missed Larson's Crumes and is now trying to depict determination and at the same time shift the guilt of his assistant. We see how his confidence and aplombs are blown away before our eyes. Star presenter Peter (Walton Goggins from the White Lotus) is trying to drive a “naive lucky” into the mousetrap, arranged by producers.
Throughout the protracted show, Peter all the time changes his attitude to Larson: at first somewhat arrogant, then interested, then Peter almost admires this clown-back.
A typical American story with a universal plot was created by an international group, among producers, for example, the famous Chilean director Pablo Larrain.
Bright, at the same time slightly faded retro -sticism - as if we have a living program from the eighties, which we are reviewing at VHS. VideoMagnestophones, vintage costumes and multi -colored turtlenecks, lush hairstyles, phones with disks, flashing bulbs. Operator Pablo Lozanyo at times simply blinds us with this scoreboard at the top of the screen, turning the movie into a surreal show, in which light and luck are sewn in one space with darkness and hopelessness. And do not spread them, even if Jackpot hugs you.
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