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Bookmark this pageHappy-Go-Lucky (2008)
Director: Mike Leigh
Synopsis
Poppy (Sally Hawkins) is a 30-year-old Londoner with a bright outlook on life. She loves her job, she loves her friends, she loves her freedom. Mike Leigh's new film follows her over a few weeks one spring as she learns to drive and embarks on a new romance.
Movie review
From Time Out London
Sally Hawkins is a real delight in Mike Leigh’s new film as Poppy, a 30-year-old Londoner with a bubbly nature and an ever-present laugh that teeters between lovable and annoying. Hawkins’ performance, and Leigh’s harnessing of it, is a tease: when we first see Poppy, cycling through the West End and joking with a grumpy bookshop assistant before joining her friends for a late-night drunken session, we don’t know what to make of her. She’s loud, joyful and indulges in terrible jokes; surely there’s something wrong with her?
The trick that Leigh and Hawkins finally pull off so cleverly by the end of 'Happy-Go-Lucky’ is that we’re entirely in cahoots with her. Poppy is a mirror to us all: if we find her blind optimism and sunny nature hard to swallow, perhaps there’s something wrong with us instead? By then, too, we know that Poppy is not the blinkered soul we may first think: she is compassionate, perceptive and harbours her own sadnesses like the rest of us.
Leigh always finds plot in character, and ‘Happy-Go-Lucky’ is more of a portrait than a story; a film that’s built around one performance. He is less concerned here, unlike, say, ‘Secrets & Lies’ and ‘Vera Drake’, with following a driving narrative than with minutely observing Poppy through her relationships with others, whether it’s the kids she teaches at her primary school, her repressed driving instructor (Eddie Marsan, excellently playing a heavy-duty bag of hang-ups), her close friend and flatmate Zoe (Alexis Zegerman) or her older, more settled colleague Heather (Sylvestra Le Touzel), whom she joins at flamenco lessons after work. In that sense, it’s comparable to ‘Naked’.
It’s a study in sadness versus happiness, a study in teachers and the taught, a study in how we carry with us everyday the burdens of what we have and haven’t learned. You know you’re watching something both delightfully light-footed and acutely meaningful when Leigh moves so nimbly between scenes at Poppy’s school, her flamenco class and her driving lessons. There’s also a wonderfully moving scene, darker and more poetic in tone, when Poppy encounters a tramp late at night. It’s a funny film – a surprise perhaps after ‘Vera Drake’ – and, crucially, it aches with truth.
Author: Dave Calhoun
Time Out London Issue 1965: April 17 - 23, 2008
User reviews of this film
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- Nando said...
- Posted on Oct 03 2008 04:20 What a solar movie. Mike daring to do it is like Poppy daring to live between a world full of Scotts. Found amazing how the happiness serves as a background -- neutral? -- and brings up the discomforts on the non-happy (who didn't go lucky). Inspiring.
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- Shelley Sawers said...
- Posted on Oct 01 2008 14:10 This was the most annoying film I have ever seen - main character completely unbelievable, I went in happy and came out thoroughly bad tempered by such an overdose of a stupid woman.
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- justin.mustin said...
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Posted on Oct 01 2008 09:46
HATE THIS MOVIE
SO BORING
SOOO NEVA C IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! - Report as inappropriate
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- Sam said...
- Posted on Sep 29 2008 18:06 Couldn't have put it better myself Julian!
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- Julian said...
- Posted on Sep 29 2008 15:35 on what grounds has Poppy a silly, loud and stupidly optimistic persona. On what objective grounds? She is not stupid or silly; she is alive and aware. I think th e point of the character is to show that being 'happy-go-lucky' is no less intelligent a way of being a response to reality than being cynical and negative- as if that is intelligence! Poppy is being herself which goes agianst the normal conditioning of what it is to be an adult! Isn't this true?
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- Rachel said...
- Posted on Sep 29 2008 13:46 I came to this site to see what others had made of Poppy, as I couldn't decide, and still can't. The people that love it seem to accept that Poppy's silly, loud and stupidly optimistic persona was an essential aspect of her warmth and sympathy. I think that's what I most resented. While it's a common film theme (especially for Leigh) for a character to grow from grumpy or bad to reveal their essential goodness, here we didn't get such growth, just an assumption that the two aspects of her character were necessarily linked, especially as she was counterposed by the grumpy pregnant sister and the stereotypically angry driving teacher, neither of whom got to get any better, while Poppy meets her soul-mate in a slightly toned-down version of herself. So on the whole I don'y buy the package, but did enjoy the Flamenco, and the early driving lessons which which rang quite true before going off the rails.
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- Toni said...
- Posted on Sep 26 2008 04:45 A real gem by Mike Leigh! This film and Vera Drake are both examples of the masterful way in which Leigh draws us into the heart of the film by tapping into the full range of emotions of his characters. The acting is superb, both rich and delicate. Sally Hawkins shines here and is the one of the few actresses who could do such a part justice. Clever, heartfelt and funny. Thoroughly enjoyed.
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- David Bell said...
- Posted on Sep 20 2008 22:20 This film is absolutely awful. With no narrative, wafer thin predictable characters with repetitive sub-plots, this is one of the longest 2 hours I have spent in the cinema.
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- Tess said...
- Posted on Sep 19 2008 22:59 One of the most beautiful films I've ever watched, full of compassion, joy and authenticity...
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- Russell said...
- Posted on Sep 16 2008 08:25 I was absolutely bowled over by this film. I fail to understand how anyone who has an interest in the cinema could fail to be affected by Sally Hawkins' funny, touching and ultimately life affirming performance. Leigh's unique style of film making really paid dividends here, and I can think of no other director who inspires laughter, tears, anger, frustration, yet enables us to leave the cinema feeling spiritually uplifted. I feel for those poor souls who don't 'get' Mike Leigh. Never mind, they can always plump for ' mamma Mia' instead.
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- Norman Lowther said...
- Posted on Sep 09 2008 18:48 An excellent film by an excellent Director.Hawkins was superb as a human soul with an optimistic spirit & this in an increasing negtive & cynical world.Well done to all concerned...SALLY SHOULD BE OSCAR NOMINATED FOR A TRULY GREAT ACTING DISPLAY
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- Rod said...
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Posted on Sep 08 2008 16:17
I'm a big Mike Leigh fan, but I'm afraid he has produced a real turkey with this one.Poppy is the only film heroine I've wanted to slap- hard.
It started nowhere and ended in the same place. Loads of pointless sub-plots ( the tramp, the sister, the drving instructor, the flamenco lessons) and this left very little. I think Sally Hawkins is a fine actor but she and the others were wasted in this pretentious tripe. - Report as inappropriate
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- Julian said...
- Posted on Sep 04 2008 14:09 thank you Liv, I wish i knew you with a viewpoint such as this!, sane, human, alive... Is it personal temperament that makes the nay-sayers hate the film, the character so much?
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- Liv said...
- Posted on Sep 04 2008 08:10 One of the best films I've seen in a long long time . I'm quite shocked to see the negative reviews but then again going by the mega buck "entertain me I'm too dumb to think for myself" rubbish that's continually hitting the screens it doesn't shcck me that much. This film demands that you switch off from analyzing and just emerge yourself in connecting with real life characters. The character of Poppy is inspirational, her enthusiasm for life and seeing the positive in everything and for having sincere respect for others is heart touching. How she dealt with the homeless guy was superb. She shows true resiliance and is a role model for individuality actually I'm sure Poppy wouldn't be at all put off my the negative reviews posted on this site. I would definitely recommend this film and if someone I knew didn't quite get what its about, then its a sure sign they need some counselling to open up to their own humaness..
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- Ian said...
- Posted on Aug 31 2008 22:56 A truly appalling waste of time. Why do these actoors workshop pieces os faux kulcha portray people as retards. I managed 30 minutes before giving up. What an appallign load of trash
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Cast & crew
Director: Mike Leigh
Cast: Kate O'Flynn, Sarah Niles, Eddie Marsan, Alexis Zegerman full cast
Genre(s): Drama
Rated: 15
Duration: 118 mins
UK Release: Apr 18 2008
US Release: Oct 10 2008
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