Luck tells the story of a young woman, Sam Greenfield. She is an orphan and is about to turn 18 years old tomorrow. Sam has had a stroke of bad luck in her brief time on earth. Can you imagine growing up in an orphanage without ever finding a family? A “forever” family, as she puts it. She doesn’t want to leave and plans to visit frequently. Why? Because she has become a big sister to the youngest resident, Hazel.
Most importantly, Sam wants to be there for her tomorrow because she has a meeting with a potential family to adopt her. However, they moved her out and placed her in a new residence.
While on her own, Sam starts a job but breaks things by running into them, or they drop on top of each other. If Sam tries to make breakfast, the toast she spreads jelly on will never find its way onto her plate and will always be on a dirty surface with the sticky side down. She is sad and lonely.
Then, one night when trying to find a table at a local cafe, she sits on the curb to eat and runs into a Scottish Black cat. How does she know this? Well, that’s because Bob talks to her. He left behind a lucky coin the day before, which changed Sam’s luck, but she promptly flushed it down the toilet. When Bob realizes the coin is gone, he portals back to the land of Luck, and Sam follows behind him without knowing.
Bob must return the coin when he reports to the home base. He dresses Sam in an elf costume and hands in a button as a replacement for the coin, and no one is the wiser — until later. The Captain finds the button, and the coin is missing. If anyone discovers that Sam is not a real elf, she will not be allowed to go home.
Also, if they do not replace the coin, Bob could be sent to Bad Luck. Yes, that’s right. Like the Upside Down in Stranger Things, this land is underneath Good Luck.
Sam wants the coin for Hazel so she can find a forever family. When they find a coin, even the ones with good luck lose the shiny piece of metal. They risk exposing Sam as a human by seeking the help of Jeff, an exuberant unicorn who invented a luck-distributing machine in the land of in-between, and Babe the Dragon, a happy-go-lucky CEO of Good Luck.
When they find a coin, Sam gives it to Bob because of the help he has given. Sam is also allowed to view Hazel’s meeting with a potential family, which ends with her not finding her forever family.
Then Sam and Bob accidentally ruin Jeff’s luck filtration system, causing Babe the Dragon’s land to turn dull, dark, and ominous. We then find out Bob is not lucky. He is a British black cat that was given a lucky coin and has been pretending to be lucky this entire time. She blames Sam for this happening, but the fake-elf/orphan has a plan.
To look for some good luck crystals in the land of Bad Luck, they find them and learn something more about themselves when it comes to adapting and returning them to Babe. She breathes fire on both piles of green and purple crystals. However, she creates good and then bad instead of creating two separate stones. Why? She still wants to perpetuate a self-destructive ideology.
Sam wants to stop Babe because she has learned that bad luck helps. How? Individuals develop a sense of wherewithal and resiliency (something most orphans know about). She convinces Babe of this, and now both worlds coexist. Bob is given a choice of where he would like to live. He chooses to spend his remaining days living with Sam on Earth.
The film ends with Hazel finding her new parents. She continues a relationship with Sam. Her new parents allow her to sleep over with Sam and Bob at their place. So, they have found their “forever family.”
