A former US Army ranger suffering from post-traumatic stress, Jackson is tasked with bringing Lulu, a bitch used by the military in overseas missions, to the funeral of her master, a former comrade in arms of Jackson himself who was killed in Pakistan. At the end of the journey, which will lead from the state of Washington to Arizona, the animal will be subjected to euthanasia, because it has become violent and unpredictable. Over the course of two very adventurous days, between hotel misadventures, an arrest and Lulu’s meeting with his twin, Jackson and the bitch will learn to trust each other, arriving in time for the function and both finding a new meaning to their lives.
In the United States, the unexpected success of Me and Lulu, which cost 15 million dollars and earned just over 60, confirmed the star status of Channing Tatum, capable of affirming his icon as a universal sex symbol and at the same time authentic american.
Jackson Briggs and his unexpected travel companion, an aggressive but sweet Belgian shepherd dog, are both war veterans, wounded in the soul even before the body, unable to forget what they have seen and no longer have a place in the civilized world. . Theirs is undoubtedly a story of friendship and love, declined according to the rules of a road movie that proceeds in stages and finally leads to a predictable and inevitable change.
Indie in style and tone, with its insistence on marginal characters (disadvantaged ex-soldiers, marijuana growers, promiscuous women, homeless people, dog breeders) and with its indie-folk songs in the soundtrack (full of names from the indie world rock, from Kurt Vile to My Morning Jacket), Lulu and I is quite traditional in affirming a typically American libertarian vision and in reaffirming a profound relationship between the characters and the landscape, which obviously is that of the great spaces of the nation, from the forests of the Northwest to the cliffs from California, from the streets of San Francisco to the desert plains of Arizona.
The one celebrated by Tatum, performer and co-director with producer Reid Carolin (screenwriter of the film and in general one of the souls behind many of the actor’s successes: Magic Mike, The Logan scam, Under siege – White House Down), is the usual Popular and outspoken America, willing to kill terrorists in war (which in the protagonist’s vision is ruthless and violent, but never wrong) and honest enough to admit it.