Debut: “Lucky Fish” is a Heartwarming Coming-of-Age Tale

“What was that school you were talking about?”

“Sarah Lawrence.”

“The lesbian art school?”

“It’s a liberal arts school.”

“Same thing.”

Lucky Fish opens in a Chinese restaurant, where Maggie (Lukita Maxwell, Shrinking and Genera+ion) sits, picking at a family-style spread of traditional dishes. As her younger dinner companion eyes her suspiciously, Maggie steals glances across the restaurant at a dreamy young woman in a light blue sweater.

Writer and director Emily May Jampel never defines the relationship between the four women at the table – Maggie, the younger girl, and two adults – but it’s clear that Maggie feels the pressure brought on by the older women as they poke fun at their children. The eldest at the table remarks in a practiced, distinguished tone that her daughter is “finally dating a man with a career” and focusing on “having children” instead of her own work. Maggie stares blankly into the distance, losing her appetite for defending the “lesbian art school” to which she aspires.  

With soft, warm lighting and a rosy soft focus, the restaurant scene feels like a dream. Drawing inspiration from “liminal spaces à la 90s teen romances like Romeo + Juliet,” Lucky Fish constructs a visual world that feels both surreal and familiar. Bathed in the warm light and elegant soft focus, the object of Maggie’s gaze eventually follows her to the bathroom. Then, Celine (Anna Mikami, The Map of Tiny Perfect Things and Birds of Prey) guides Maggie into yet another dreamlike dimension: a room with a large fish tank. 

They examine the fish and then each other, commiserating over their family’s traditional values, their similar backgrounds, and an implied crush. Eventually, Maggie blurts, “You’re really pretty.”

Maggie and Celine, suspended in a world outside of the confines of their family’s dinners, criticisms, and social pressure, share a touching and innocent moment of connection. The film calls itself a “short, sweet film about sapphic euphoria,” and that it is. Absent from Lucky Fish are themes of queer struggle – save, perhaps, for the lambasting of Sarah Lawrence – rather, the film positions Celine and Maggie’s interaction as a wholesome, innocent, and heartwarming meet-cute, an escape for both the characters and the viewers. 

Says Jampal,

“I watched a lot of short films during my day jobs. I got to see what I liked and what I wanted to avoid. I gave myself constraints. Usually, it’s the opposite, I start off from a very emotional, personal place, and then I try to make a story that makes sense around it. This time I started with the logistical framework and I gave myself structure. That’s when I got more into the specifics of the story. I wanted to make a story that has basically no men in it (laughs). It was just the energy I wanted for my first film.”

Lucky Fish is a joy to watch, simultaneously sweet and serious, and its conspicuous lack of male characters leaves nothing to be desired. Lucky Fish, though short and fleeting, is fully fleshed out; it feels authentic and true. 

“I do identify as Asian-American, but it’s more complicated than most people think. All the restaurant stuff in the film and conversations are, word-for-word, soundbites that I’ve stored at the back of my head, from many dinners.”

Drawing from Jampal’s own experience as well as her 90s-era romance inspirations, Lucky Fish is a delightful treat. Amid a landscape, both in short and feature films, where struggle and pain often guide queer narratives, the film is a welcome respite from doom and gloom that allows viewers to relive the exhilaration they themselves felt with their first crush. Expertly balancing commentary on generational relationships, family expectations, and cultural assimilation with endearing glee and innocence, Lucky Fish transports viewers to a place of nostalgia and sentimentality where the stakes may be low, but the payoff is brilliant.