The Lucky Star

Lucky Star is a 1997 drama film directed by Ricardo Franco and starring Antonio Resines, Jordi Mollá and Maribel Verdú. Critically acclaimed, the film won five Goya Awards: Best Film, Best Director, Best Actor (Antonio Resines), Best Original Screenplay and Best Original Score. Ricardo Franco made just one more film; he died of a heart attack in 1998. Plot Rafael is a kind, good-hearted butcher. He has a lonely life after accidentally castrating himself while cutting meat several years before, but he longs to have a family life, a dream that seems unattainable for him. One early morning when he is driving his truck to his butcher’s shop, he sees a young man assaulting a woman. Rafael cannot help but intervene and jumps out of his vehicle to help her. Taking pity on the girl, he takes her to his home. Her name is Marina and the man who was beating her was her boyfriend, Daniel. Marina, nicknamed One-Eye (for she lost one eye in a childhood accident), tells Rafael how she and Daniel grew up together in a hostile environment in an orphanage, where she was left abandoned by her father. Marina feels attach to Daniel, as they do not have anybody else. They have had a hard life on the streets, and now that she is pregnant by him, she is adamant not only to have the baby, that Daniel does not want, but she would like to offer the baby the family life, she never had. After knowing that Daniel is now in jail, Rafael proposes to Marina to take care of her and the baby. She gladly accepts his offer but warns him that Daniel sooner or later will come back and then she would not know what to do. Marina and Rafael both grab the possibility to fulfill the impossible dream they once had to form a family.