Movie Notes: Happy Go Lucky

November 26th, 2008

= 4 stars

Starring Sally Hawkins, Eddie Marsan, Alexis Zegerman
Directed by Mike Leigh

Synopsis

Primary school teacher Poppy (Sally Hawkins) is impossibly happy and upbeat, with warm friends and family in London. Her optimism is tested by a tense, grumpy driving instructor Scott (Eddie Marsan).

The Good

• Hawkins adeptly plays Poppy with enough quirky mannerisms to provide humor, but also lends the character depth during tough situations.
• Good thing happen to Poppy as a result of her optimism. After helping a troubled student, a series of uplifting events are set into motion.
• There’s an “anti-Poppy” named Scott. He’s a pissed off, conspiracy-theorist driving instructor that practices abject pessimism. He’s a victim, trapped in his own personal prison of annoyance. His car is an apt metaphor for his world-view, which he uses to demonstrate control, as a bubble of denial, and a manifestation of anger.
• The film’s best scenes involve Poppy’s run-ins with “normal” people. Note her careful conversation while drinking with friends, her chat with an unhappy sister conforming to society (dragging along a hen-pecked husband), and her series of stressful driving lessons with the aforementioned Scott.

The Bad

• I find constantly happy people rather annoying, so I spent the first half of the movie hoping something crappy would befall to Poppy just to see how she’d react. Thankfully, something eventually does.
• Poppy occasionally crosses the line into an innnocent-savant, with a simple outlook on life that makes all us normal people look bad. There are a surprising number of films of this type (Amelie, Forrest Gump, Rainman, Little Miss Sunshine) and Happy Go Lucky isn’t as epic or uplifting.
• Not as funny as I hoped it would be, and much of the humor is rather dark.

Conclusion

Right out of the theater I felt this was a three star movie, but I found myself pondering the film for several days afterward. It’s mostly because of Scott, the anti-Poppy, who provides dramatic contrast and weight. Both Scott and Poppy are teachers, therefore their dispositions are surely meant to be instructive. Their final confrontation is worth seeing, and your reaction to it will reveal something about your attitude toward life, and what you could stand to change.

Happy Go Lucky is a fair argument for unbridled optimism — when life delivers the inevitable disappointments, a positive attitude puts you in a better position to cope.

IMDB: Happy Go Lucky
Wikipedia: Happy Go Lucky
Rotten Tomatoes: Happy Go Lucky 97%