Title: Happy-Go-Lucky Year: 2008 Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance Country: UK Language: English Director/Screenwriter: Mike Leigh Music: Gary Yershon Cinematography: Dick Pope Editing: Jim Clark Cast: Sally Hawkins Eddie Marsan Alexis Zegerman Kate O’Flynn Samuel Roukin Sylvestra Le Touzel Sarah Niles Nonso Anozie Karina Fernandez Stanley Townsend Caroline Martin Oliver Maltman Andrea Riseborough Sinead Matthews Rating: 7.6/10
As I see it, Mike Leigh’s HAPPY-GO-LUCKY is, more than anything, a plea for tolerance because not everyone could stand a girl like Poppy (Hawkins), whose chirpy and sanguine nature is beguiling and infectious at first glance, but the persistence and monotony of it can result in being mildly vexing. Character-wise, Poppy errs on the side of being blindingly carefree, she has no moderation to dial up or down her sunny-side jokiness, she thinks she is spreading merriment to those less happier ones around her, but one should never tar people with the same brush. Like her best friend Zoe (Zegerman) counsels her in the end, “you are too nice, you can't make everyone happy”, which is shrugged off by Poppy as her go-to response, Poppy’s temperament often puts her in precarious situations, during an encounter with a deranged tramp (Townsend), her sympathy to his plight is adulterated with a tangible shudder of dread, she could be attacked by him and no one is there to help her, which Leigh uses to prefigure the climatic clash between her and Scott (Marson), her cynic and jealous driver instructor, a proto-incel whose poisonous worldview should have been a yellow flag to Poppy if she isn’t that naive. She is verbally abused and physically assaulted by him and mercifully Scott isn’t a real bastard, but is all her effort and trouble conducive to ameliorate his delusion? Reckoning by his final line “Is he your boyfriend?”, Leigh seems to suggest us it is a lost cause. It is traceable that Leigh maintains an ambiguous perspective to Poppy’s idiosyncrasy, incidentally, who is a 30-year-old elementary school teacher, single and fancy-free, sharing a flat with her bestie Zoe and hasn’t any worries in the world. She loves her job and is fairly competent in it (she is rapier-like to discern the cause of a pupil’s violent behavior), but she is slow to realize or refuses to accept that not everyone can stomach her temperament, she should be more careful. That’s it, and reverting to my opening statement, Poppy’s innocuousness and good intention alone can rest the case here, you might not want to be around her, but don't hurt her, no harm shall ever befall her because of her quirk and difference, an icy response she receives from a bookstore clerk in the beginning of the movie can squarely draw the line in the sand. HAPPY-GO-LUCKY's message resonates pointedly with a radicalized world of today, it is mostly permeated with delightfulness and pleasantness, sans pretension. Leigh’s deceptively modest filmmaking is as adept and free-wheeling as ever, but unequivocally, kudos must also specially accorded to two performers, Hawkins is notoriously snubbed for an Oscar nomination for this breakthrough role, her incarnation is a mother lode of kookiness, spiritedness, relentlessness, all fired up with heartfelt emotion and her questionable dress sense. However, if not more impressive, Marson also totally bowl audience over with his prodigious talent in emotively reeling off rigmarole without sagging its impact, and zowie to “en-ra-ha”, a catchword every driver-to-be must memorialize! referential entries: Mike Leigh's TOPSY-TURVY (1999, 7.3/10); Alice Rohrwacher's HAPPY AS LAZZARO (2018, 8.5/10).
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