Believe it or not, the impressively awful Just My Luck may be the most provocative film of the year. This flick begs its remarkably small audience – primarily of suckers who fell for an ad campaign promoting a film that is an ad campaign – to ask some mind-bogglingly simple questions that some studio exec should’ve answered long before.

The big question: Who the hell is supposed to like this movie? Given the plot – a sugary inversion of Cinderella in which the glass slipper is as lucky as an STD – I’d guess girls who fit the Disney teen/tween demographic. Yet there are numerous references to cultural icons, such as Sarah Jessica Parker, that demand an older audience – ones tall enough to get on the Sex and the City ride.

Donald Petrie, responsible for some real winners (IMDB him for a good guffaw), supposedly directed this film, but surely the collective opinion of a test audience is the film’s true auteur. And I can’t help but wonder which PR firm penned the screenplay, in which star Lindsay Lohan’s presence feels more like a product placement than a real performance.

The smaller questions: Does anybody, young or old, still take Lohan, a.k.a. LiLo, seriously? How did the music industry so successfully trick kids into loving the kind of pop-punk that plagues this film’s soundtrack? Why are there two – not one, but two – O.C. outcasts in this film? Why are their performances more engaging than LiLo’s? Why does LiLo’s fake tan look more like frappucino stains than California bronze? Why does this movie feel like an adaptation of a diet energy drink concocted to reinvigorate LiLo’s sleepy fans? And, if the target audience is indeed teen/tween girls, why does LiLo get sopping wet so often? To reward the brothers forced to endure this film for their sister’s enjoyment?

I just don’t get it. And I’m not the only one; Luck could only manage a dismal $5.7 million this weekend. Somebody’s getting fired for this flop.