Happy Go Lucky

Starring: Sally Hawkins, Eddie Marsan, Alexis Zegerman

Director: Mike Leigh

You’ll have to excuse the tardiness of this review. Yes, Happy Go Lucky was released in 2008, and yes, it’s not particularly relevant to review it right now. In fact, it’s downright out of date. However, if you are going to spend your time reading film reviews on the blog of someone who is approximately a thousand-million miles away from being a professional, you will have to occasionally accept some of the reviews not being for new releases (unless you want to fund me to go and see a whole load of new releases each week – do you?). Instead, you will get a steady stream of all the films I watch for the first time, no matter how old. Sorry to disappoint….

Anyway, moving past that stuttering, self-indulgent justification for a hopelessly out of date review, let’s look at Happy Go Lucky. Mike Leigh’s comedy introduces us to Poppy (Hawkins) a permanently cheerful and optimistic primary school teacher, who lives in London with flatmate Zoe. When Poppy’s bicycle is stolen, she takes up driving lessons with ill-tempered, intolerant Scott (Marsan), which we follow over a number of weeks. She also has an issue when a child in her class begins picking fights with other students, something which may be rooted in some problems the child is having in his home life.

It does seem a bit of a disservice to give this film a plot synopsis. It is a movie less about story and more about just getting an opportunity to follow round Poppy and explore her uniquely optimistic outlook on life. In even the most testing of circumstances, she remains upbeat and carries on with a smile and a joke. At first, this is slightly annoying and you wish she’d just stop being so hyper-active, calm down and have an actual conversation. However after ten minutes all of that is forgotten and you are completely besotted by her, and realise that the earlier irritation was down to your own cynical world view, which will soon by worn down by her anyway.

One may be forgiven for hearing this is a Mike Leigh film and immediately expecting a gritty, uber-realistic British drama. It’s often overlooked that, when given the chance, he’s a gifted comedy writer and director, and with Happy Go Lucky he has crafted a film which makes you regularly laugh out loud. Even better than that, in the moments you aren’t laughing you are sat with a big, stupid grin on your face at the sheer joyful magnificence of Poppy’s life plays out on screen.

When any character starts a film so unrelentingly cheerful, its common form for the script to take them down a dark path and make them suffer, creating a bitter character in direct contrast to the ray of sunshine which began the film. However, Leigh dispenses with this cliché, and rather than follow the normal convention of having the world drag Poppy down, it feels like Poppy is trying to pull the world up to her own glorious level. She doesn’t always achieve this but never stops trying, and while it would be easy to make such a pleasant character a bit of dope, Leigh instead ensures Poppy never falls into this stereotype. She isn’t naive, innocent or weak: she’s smart, wise and deceptively strong-willed.

It’s a remarkably well-written character, brought to life so well by Sally Hawkins, who gives Poppy a genuine sense of warmth and heart. She is like a streetwise version of Amelie Poulain, all brightness and light and looking for the best in people. At one point her flatmate points out that you can’t please all of the people all of the time, only to get the response from Poppy that “there’s no harm in trying”, and that sums up her life philosophy: no matter the reaction she gets from people, she remains positive and doesn’t let them get her down.

It’s not just in the pleasantries that Hawkins shines (although she does excel in these moments, her happiness always seeming genuine and never feeling forced). There are a few key scenes where Poppy shows her stronger side, displaying real thoughtfulness and intelligence. One moment near the movie’s end has an emotional confrontation with another character, where Hawkins cuts out all the giggling and the laughing and the silly comments, and portrays Poppy as someone with surprising levels of mental and emotional strength. It’s a fantastic performance, and makes you wish you were as happy go lucky (unintentional, but unavoidable, pun) as Poppy.

Eddie Marsan’s Scott, however, is the complete Yin to Poppy’s Yang. Angry, repressed, intolerant and confused, he’s the sort of character you keep expecting to have a defining moment, but it never comes: like in real-life, there is no big epiphany forcing a person to change their whole world view. Marsan is terrific, showcasing Scott’s bottled-up rage and barely contained fury at a world he deems unfair. He lets loose on various incoherent diatribes about all and nothing, but rather than disliking the character the audience ends up pitying him and the sense of misplaced blame he places on the world for his failures.

The driving lesson’s between him and Poppy are comfortably the film’s highlight, contrasting his edgy volatility with her sharp-wit and sense of fun. Leigh films them in a style not dissimilar to those old Driving School TV shows from a few years ago, and this level of intimacy also helps to set up the uneasy dynamic between the two, particularly highlighting Scott’s awkward discomfort. Also, the exchanges are incredibly funny, and  force actual belly-laughs. One moment, regarding an oncoming juggernaut, is particularly hilarious.

Overall, Happy Go Lucky is a cracking little film. Very funny and with a real sense of joy at its core, Leigh still touches on some of the tough themes which have become his trademark, but this time does it through the prism of someone who refuses to let anything get her down and make her feel bad about herself. It is a feeling which transfers to the audience, making this a classic example of a ‘feel-good movie’. Happy Go Lucky gets 7.5/10.

If you want to read more about Happy Go Lucky, click HERE to go to the new Wiki page, or HERE to go to the IMDB page. 

For more reviews of mine, go HERE. Go on, press it, what have you got to lose? You know, apart from your time and a large chunk of your soul……