Happy-Go-Lucky

In this latest movie from Mike Leigh we are introduced to the very sweet Poppy. Poppy is a teacher, a good laugh, a bit of a loon and a really annoying person all rolled into one but try as you might you won't hold that against her. She is an unexpectedly cute cross between Michaela Strachan and Frank Spencer. Thankfully, there's no beret but there are plenty of knockabout gags which, when coupled with Poppy's infectious giggling and quick asides, had the audience laughing along quite genuinely. Characters come and go throughout the movie with an especially good performance from Stanley Townsend, but it's Eddie Marsan who gives the stand out performance in the movie with his darkly obsessive narratives and non sequiturs which expose his sinister persona. The rest of the cast are also splendid, they all fit in just right to make this a very watchable and enjoyable movie. Even the two dimensional characters have good aspects for which they are easily forgiven. I wouldn't hesitate in recommending people to this movie, my only complaint being that it was over too soon. I could have watched how the characters developed for another day or two and I guess that's down to the fascination with the ordinary which Mike Leigh builds into his films.

In Camden, the elementary school teacher Poppy Cross (Sally Hawkins) is a very optimistic thirty year-old smiler that has been sharing a flat with her girlfriend and also teacher Zoe (Alexis Zegerman) for ten years. When her bicycle is stolen, Poppy decides to have driving lessons in the Axle School of Motoring with the rude, bigoted and bitter instructor Scott (Eddie Marsan). Meanwhile she has trouble with her back in the trampoline and she decides to take classes of Flamenco dance with a Spanish teacher. When her pupil Nick (Jack MacGeachin) bullies other students, Poppy feels that the boy is having troubles at home and asks for the assistance of the social worker Tim (Samuel Roukin) and they start to date each other. However her attitude of happiness and joy is misinterpreted by Scott.

"Happy-Go-Lucky" is a simple movie of Mike Leigh with one of the sweetest and most beautiful characters I have ever seen. Sally Hawkins is simply fantastic performing a character that tries to bring smile to the world, and I loved her. The story discloses a couple of days in the life of this remarkable character that seems to be inspired in some of Frank Capra's characters. Her counterpoint is Scott, with a magnificent performance of the always effective Eddie Marsan. The winner of this duel is unfortunately the sadness and bitterness of Scott that shakes the happiness of Poppy in a realistic conclusion of this great little movie. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Simplesmente Feliz" ("Simply Happy")

I think most of us know a person who is perpetually happy and optimistic, and so annoyingly so that you resent them for being happy when you're not, and you consciously or unconsciously try to smash their rose-tinted glasses. I would add a "or maybe that's just me" but Happy-Go-Lucky is the story of such a person, and how she affects everyone around her.

Gawd, Poppy's annoying. This is quite the "love it or hate it" movie depending on whether you're more like her or like the angry and negative driving instructor she antagonizes with her cheerfulness. But as long as you can hold down the bile, it can be fascinating to watch her interact with the spectrum of people she encounters, since they all fall at various points between her and the instructor. From tolerant, to accepting, to nonchalant, to envious, they run the gamut and it's pretty easier to associate with one of them.

At first I thought Sally Hawkins' performance was going to be one shrill note throughout the movie, but no, there are fortunately moments of quiet drama too. In any case, I have to admire someone who can act so constantly cheerful without any traces of irony. I find Mike Leigh's movies quite hard to sit through, since they're usually about people and their interactions, and to appreciate the movies you have to strive to understand their people. Patience and understanding are not qualities I have in copious amounts; I generally prefer characters that I automatically empathize with.

This movie is a rare oddity in that it annoyed me and yet it was still a good watch. It's a movie that I would recommend to people but lordy, I don't wanna watch it again.

Mike Leigh's done it again ... for fans and detractors alike! Poppy, his latest creation, sails through this slice of life with a smile on her face, fun on her mind and kindness in her heart.

Irritating? I didn't think so. On my good days, I rather hope there's a little of her in me.

For me, she was quite brilliantly brought to life by the excellent Sally Hawkins. Ironically, if she calls to mind any other inhabitant of Planet Leigh then it's probably Jane Horrocks's rather more sour Nic (or was it Nat?) in Life Is Sweet.

And Poppy has much to be happy about. A true friend, with whom she shares a not-too-shabby flat in a Finsbury Park that I shall not stoop to comparing with the N4 district of my own experience. A job she was born to do, among supportive colleagues. An enjoyable social life, memories of travels past, a cool reetro bike (for a while, at least ... ) and a wardrobe straight out of (ahem!) an Australian's nightmare all go to emphasise the message given by the film's title.

Into her life ambles driving instructor Scott, played by the ever-welcome Eddie Marsan, and the real fun begins. If Poppy can be said to stroll across the surface of life's duckpond without even getting the soles of her cowboy boots wet, then Scott is a man slowly drowning. The film's strongest plot line (this *is* Mike Leigh!) charts the evolving relationship between these apparent opposites,and the interplay really lights up the screen.

To say more would dent your enjoyment should you decide to go and see for yourself! If you go by bike, remember to lock up securely or - better still - maybe your best friend will take you along in her "mad" yellow car.

However you get there, why not let Poppy's attitude infect you for a few hours after you leave? It probably will anyway ...

Happy-Go-Lucky has been reviewed in the British press as a relatively lightweight Mike Leigh movie, but I'm not so sure. The story revolves around Sally Hawkins' remarkable performance as primary school teacher Poppy Cross, a highly unusual character in that Hawkins and Leigh between them manage to make her consistently cheerful and optimistic without being either naive or irritating. Poppy is presented as both relentlessly cheery and, on another level, remarkably intuitive; throughout the film, she has a series of encounters with troubled male figures (a boy in her class who has started bullying, a very strange homeless Irishman and, above all, her phenomenally uptight driving instructor Scott) and in all of them, Poppy's liveliness and friendly curiosity about other people is seen to be a powerful counter to male self-pity, anger and despair.

Hawkins' character is not someone who is inclined to let life get her down, so it's just as well that she is surrounded by people with a somewhat more sardonic or downbeat take on reality. Her flatmate Zoe (Alexis Zegerman, very good) is a wonderfully dry and sarky counter to Poppy's enthusiasm, although the affection between them is palpable. Poppy's younger sisters Suzy and Helen are also quite different; Suzy is a law student who is more interested in clubbing, drinking and playing with her brother-in-law's Playstation than in criminal justice, while Helen is heavily pregnant, obsessed with acquiring the trappings of a respectable suburban life and unable to understand how her older sister can be so happy living in a rented flat and not stepping onto the property ladder.

The big surprise for me is that I had been led to believe that this is a more or less straightforward feelgood film. It isn't. Scott, Poppy's driving teacher (Eddie Marsan), is the most affecting character in it, and one of the greatest and most unforgettable characters in Leigh's oeuvre. Most of the reviews I've read of the film depict Scott as a hateful, sinister or otherwise despicable character, but although it's true that he is an uptight, judgmental, angry bigot, it is also perfectly clear from his first appearance that he doesn't know what he's talking about and that he is driven by emotional problems that he hasn't even begun to get a handle on. Marsan's extraordinary performance is one of the best things I've seen on film for a long time. Scott has been afflicted with very bad teeth and a mild speech defect (he can't really say the letter 'r') and although his inner anger and bigotry is played for laughs for a lot of the film, in the end it is allowed to blossom forth in a riveting scene where his fury, jealousy and terror of his own darkness spill forth in a heartbreaking and riveting torrent. If part of the point of art is to help us to understand people we would otherwise have little sympathy with, then this film is a work of art. I've never seen Marsan before but he deserves awards for this movie, no question.

Happy-Go-Lucky is a highly enjoyable and often very funny film, but it also carries terrible sadness. I have never been a massive fan of Mike Leigh, but lately I have to admit that I was wrong. He just seems to get better and better.