HAPPY-GO-LUCKY Miramax Films
Reviewed for CompuServe by Harvey Karten
Grade: B
Directed by: Mike Leigh
Written By: Mike Leigh
Cast: Sally Hawkins, Alexis Zegerman, Andrea Riseborough, Alexis Zegerman, Andrea Riseborough, Sinead,Matthews, Kate O’Flynn, Sarah Niles, Eddie Marsan, Sylvestra le Touzel, Karina Fernandez, Samuel Roukin, Caroline Martin, Oliver Maltman
Screened at: Broadway, NYC, 7/31/08
Opens: October 10, 2008 While watching this film, you may get the impression that writer-director Mike Leigh has a touch of the bi-polar, with the manic energy coming through this year. After all, his “Vera Drake” deals with the secret life of an abortionist who performs her deed undercover while she goes through her mundane life putting up tea and caring for her family. “Naked” looks into the life of a drifter from Manchester who verbally abuses everyone in sight including his ex-girlfriend. Then again, Leigh can’t be pigeonholed: his “Topsy Turvy” focused on the personalities of Gilbert and Sullivan and the procedures they used to turn their ideas into operettas. But nothing else matches the effervescence of “Happy-Go-Lucky,” a perfect title for a look at a thirty-year-old woman who goes through her London life with a smile on her face and a giggle in her voice, trying to make everyone as happy as she. She does become irritating after a short time, though by the time the picture concludes, the happy person, nicknamed Poppy (Sally Hawkins), has become more lovable (for people who can put up with that sort of thing—others know that too much sun is just not advisable). Mike Leigh is the sort of director who likes to see how people interact when they have just met. One can even gather from “Happy-Go-Lucky” that the cast began with improvs, then moved on to a scripted work however disordered. The movie unfolds like a documentary, not unlike what a sociologist would discover when folks of different temperaments get together. Sally Hawkins, who is in almost every frame of a film that at one point was 158 minutes long but now comes in at just under two hours, plays a London primary school teacher who relates well to the children but has more trouble with those her own age. As she rides her bike around the neighborhood loving every moment, she reminds one of
Tracy Turnblad, Nikky Blonsky’s character, a rosy smile on her face as she sings of the joys of Baltimore in Adam Shankman’s “Hairspray.” In a bookstore, she tries to chat up the assistant (Elliot Cowan) who looks as though he thinks she’s a confused motormouth. Her conversations with her roommate, Zoe (Alexis Zegerman) have the slice-of-life character of two people who know each other for a decade. Determined to live every moment of her waking life, she good-naturedly goes for flamenco lessons from a teacher (Karina Fernandez) who teases her students by referring to her country’s oranges “made into your awful marmalade” and sneering at the way the English pronounce her city “Seville.” The most trenchant observations, however, take place in the car of her driving instructor, Scott (Eddie Marsan), who chastises his student each time for wearing boots with high heels while expressing bizarre, racist opinions that make one think that Poppy is continuing with weekly lessons more to teach her instructor about happiness than she does to learn to drive. In her final statement to Scott she looks serious for the first time, quite a relief from the eternal rays of sunshine that project from her face. Sally Hawkins easily holds the screen for the film’s length, the best performance comes from the driving instructor played by Eddie Marsan (“The Last Hangman,” “The Secret Life of Words,” “Vera Drake”), an emotionally overwrought fellow who needs cognitive therapy before he puts more Londoners in the hospital. The film is slice-of-life with nothing resembling a tight plot, a treat for fans of naturalistic fiction. Not Rated. 118 minutes. © 2008 by Harvey Karten Member: NY Film Critics Online
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