Director - Mike Leigh

Writer - Mike Leigh

Starring - Sally Hawkins, Alexis Zegerman, Eddie Marsan, Kate O’Flynn, Samuel Roukin

Review:

I am struggling to think of a more accurately titled film in the last year so than Mike Leigh’s Happy-Go-Lucky. It’s a film that harbours one of the friendliest, most likeable and, that’s right you guessed it, happiest characters you are likely to see all year.

Happy-Go-Lucky follows Poppy, a lively and cheery 30-something woman who tries her best to make everyone around her as happy as she is. She works as a primary school teacher, lives with her sister and takes driving lessons taught by Scott, a man who is the polar opposite of her upbeat self.

I think it’s safe to say that Happy-Go-Lucky is going to be the film to cheer everyone up this year. I challenge anyone who’s having a bad day to go see this film and come out feeling the same as when they went in. It’s like a breath of fresh and happy air through the usual “look on the down side of life” films we get in cinemas. And that’s understandable that that’s what we get, because let’s face it; misery and death sells. But every once in a while we need films like this, films that remind us how good life can be, how to find happiness in the smallest of things even if we have to strive to see them.

The film’s effect on the viewer is precisely down to the character of Poppy, played to perfection by Sally Hawkins. Like I have mentioned she is one of, perhaps the, most likeable and upbeat characters of the 21st century so far. As she happily makes her way through the part of her life we have the good fortune to witness she tries her best to make everyone else around her feel the same as her. Most of the time she is met with surprised expressions at her behaviour or plain ignorance from the various people she meets. The character’s behaviour and general view on life could have been annoying but writer/director Mike Leigh and Hawkins herself play it just right to give the intended effect and to stop short of being irritating in any way. Everything from Poppy’s smile, her laugh and her look to her words, her behaviour and her general view on life triggers a smile on the audience’s faces. You don’t meet people like Poppy every day and at least this film gives us a couple of hours chance to do so.

This is a decisively big departure for filmmaker Mike Leigh from his usual tough-and-gritty approach to his films. Looking at films such as Secrets & Lies and Vera Drake it’s hard to see how the same guy could make such a happy and upbeat film as this. But at the same time you can see Leigh’s fingerprints all over this, most notably is his sustained sense honesty and realism. The central character here may be a bit larger than life and she certainly isn’t someone that you see all the time but she still is very much grounded in the real world. Throughout the entire film you can just feel that everything that happens is coming from a sincere and honest place even if it isn’t necessarily completely true. It feels like everything that happens could actually happen in real life and I think that’s what is used as an effective backdrop for Poppy to shine.

The script here is extremely well written. Particularly in the scenes involving Poppy having long conversations with another character, primarily one-on-one. The conversations just seem to flow as they would do in real life instead of feeling forced, which when you hear some of the dialogue could have very easily happened. I think how natural the conversations feel is down to the actors at hand, particularly Hawkins. Leigh has worked with her in a couple of his previous films and I think he felt that he needed to let her take centre stage and she does so will all her effort.

The film does have a few unusual scenes that break from the overall happy feel, including a perplexing scene involving a homeless man, and it’s a tad too long but it’s not enough to make it anything less than great. Sally Hawkins is fantastic as the infinitely likeable Poppy and she is supported very well, particularly by Eddie Marsan as her very troubled driving instructor. Happy-Go-Lucky is a film that reminds us to look for the good things in life and I will be very surprised if anyone leaves the cinema feeling anything less than what the title states.

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