Happy-Go-Lucky

Happy-Go-Lucky

Happy-Go-Lucky - Written and directed by Mike Leigh, starring Sally Hawkins and Eddie Marsan - Rated R

I was kind of dreading watching this one. Just look at the picture of Sally Hawkins in character. She looks annoying enough, just wait until she starts with her constant unfunny jokes. So I didn't like her from the start and that's the main issue for this movie because the plot is really just about her boring little life. She teaches kindergarten, drinks with her friends, and puts on a smile no matter what. Then the big plot point develops: she decides to take driving lessons. So this is a character film. That's fine, but I don't like the character. In fact, I spent most of the movie wanting people to yell at her and tell her to shut up, just please shut up! But she doesn't shut up. She can't. Even when Eddie Marsan, as the driving instructor, freaks out on her, she just takes it all in stride and keeps on with her constant barrage of annoying jokes. I could go on, but I won't. This is a well made movie and all; I just hated the main character, which means I hated the movie.

Eric Harris - www.canneltoncritic.com

Happy-Go-Lucky (Mike Leigh, 2008)

****
½UK

For a purportedly sunny trifle about a terminally chirpy primary school teacher, this pastel-coloured Mike Leigh joint cranks up some remarkable tension. Even if the film leaves an aftertaste of something airy, sweet and authentically lovely, it's unsettling in a primal way to watch the morbidly optimistic Sally Hawkins float from mild irritations to eerie threats to impending fiascos. Considering her optimism is only as much a sign of innocence as it is of desperation, to see it quashed would be devastating to the core. With charm and subtle mastery, Hawkins walks the fine line between irresistible and exasperating. She gets great support from an ensemble of brilliant, beautifully orchestrated character players. The film has an aura of honesty and lives lived without much outward fuss. Even after the credits, it's difficult to snap out of it.


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To those wondering whether I'm still alive, and more importantly, attending MIFF - aren't you sweet? - it's a yes on both counts. I've already caught Rivette's very gorgeous Don't Touch the Axe/Duchess of Langeais. Comments to follow.

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Happy-Go-Lucky

Good teaching is about taking care with people. Good teachers are not instructors; they do not live and die by rules; they do not hector, or bait, or preside in judgement. Teaching, as a profession, is far more about being human than it is about being in charge. Mike Leigh’s new movie, Happy-Go-Lucky, is all about teaching. Its heroine may not have all the answers, but she’s got the right stuff as far as teaching goes. To watch her with her class, or as a student of flamenco, or as a learner driver, is to watch someone both grounded and open at all times… to watch a teacher; someone delighted by life; someone who knows the lesson isn’t ever about algebra or Shakespeare… it’s aboutwho learns, not what.

Sally Hawkins plays Poppy, a Primary School teacher. Poppy is 30, single, and happy. She lives in a shared flat with her flatmate of a thousand years, Zoe (who’s also a Primary School teacher). Poppy has two sisters, one married and conventional, the other a stroppy Law student with eyes that scarcely ever stop rolling. In the course of the movie Poppy does not: a) find true love; b) inspire a previously underachieving class; c) sing along to the movie’s soundtrack. Sally Hawkins is not playing Bridget Jones. Poppy is someone who cherishes her life. She loves her job, her friends, her flat… and she would be dull, or irritating (let’s face it), but she isn’t a happy character in a rom-com; she is happy through choice. Unhappy people don’t surprise her, they get surprised: her joy is deeper than despair.

Acting isn’t the right term for what people do in Mike Leigh movies. In the literal sense that people are paid to pretend to be other people: there’s acting. But in the sense of most screen acting (i.e. pimping for Burger King or sobbing for an Oscar), Leigh’s actors wouldn’t qualify for extras, let alone stars.

Sally Hawkins is the sort of actress who would get two lines in most movies (“Doctor, I think he’s going into shock!” or “Argh! Zombies!” …sort of thing), but here she plays a starring role as if, at once, she wasn’t the star and as if she should be starring in more movies. She has a face that was made for smiling. She looks a bit sharp when her face is blank. Maybe that’s her secret, the reason Poppy can be happy and not seem outgunned by unpleasant people; because she could be unpleasant too, if she smiled less. It’s tough to play kooky or zany characters as real people, almost impossible to stop them grating. But Hawkins achieves the impossible because Poppy isn’t a chaste naïf (like Amelie) or goggley-eyed flibbertigibbet (like everyone Brittany Murphy has ever played), she is a woman of 30, who knows how she looks to other 30 year-olds, and who doesn’t fret. To get a proper measure of how well Sally Hawkins copes with the role, imagine Renée Zellweger as Poppy, expand the will-she-meet-a-man?!?-storyline until it takes over the movie, and start screaming.

Eddie Marsan and Karina Fernandez, as, respectively, Poppy’s driving instructor and her flamenco teacher, both step up to the unstoppable force that it Sally Hawkins, and survive her. Marsan, in particular, rebuffs easy empathy with (or mockery of) his Travis Bickle-esque little man; Scott might be a tinder box of self-loathing and conspiracy theories, but his stubborn pride (some might call it Captain Ahab syndrome) stops him blubbing in front of Poppy, and though he’s broken at the end, he’d still spit at her for hugging him.

Poppy knows she can’t solve everyone’s problems. That’s what stops her being naïve. Happy-Go-Lucky isn’t the story of a teacher who turns people’s lives around, it’s the story of a teacher who intercedes, and what it is about her that makes her intercede, not what happens after. We don’t know what happens to Scott, or to the boy in Poppy’s class who hits pupils. We don’t know what happens to the homeless man who Poppy meets one night. What we do know is that Scott was once like the boy in Poppy’s class and that the homeless man is a possible vision of Scott’s future. Poppy intercedes not in the knowledge that she can save these people, but because her job, as a teacher, is to pay attention.

Happy Go Lucky

Happy-Go-Lucky is a British comedy-drama written and directed by Mike Leigh. The tagline reads “The one movie this fall that will put a smile on your face” and that’s exactly what it is.

Poppy (Sally Hawkins) is a 30 years old single woman who looks only on the bright side of life. It seems like she has no fear of anything and fascinated to try out almost everything, from taking trampoline class to flamenco lesson.  When her bicycle is stolen, she decides to take driving lesson for the first time. Her driving instructor, Scott (Eddie Marsan), is a anguish man with an issue of racism and etc, a total opposite from Poppy’s easy going character. At first Scott is constantly aggravated by Poppy’s behaviour (Well, you won’t be surprised why), but as their lessons continue he begins to be attracted to her (you won’t wonder why either).
Meanwhile, a student in Poppy’s class is becoming aggresive and social worker Tim (Samuel Roukin) is sent on to counsel him. Poppy and Tim ends up becoming a couple and what’s going to happen to Scott?



At some point, Poppy positive attitude becomes increasingly annoying but thanks to Sally Hawkins, she doesn’t lose her charm. In the beginning we could only see her easy going character but as the story unfolds, her charater becomes stronger and deeper. There’s something about her that lures you in and you can’t help but to like her. Scott on the other hand, is a dark character with explosive temper and we would discover his past bit by bit. There are more than meet the eyes for each character and it makes the movie more than just happy-go-lucky.

I like this movie. I’m not too sure why but Poppy is probably one of the reasons. One might say the movie is pointless because there’s no apparent issue or plot, but to me it is realistic and doesn’t far-fetched the heart of the story. It’s all about human characters, not just story plots and it leaves you with things for thoughts and character analyzation.

This movie is a matter of preferance. Some will like it, some won’t and I belong to the first group.

Mel says: 7.4/10

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