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Review: Happy Go Lucky
By Karen Ball | In Film & cinemas
Mike Leigh (2008) Sally Hawkins, Alexis Zegerman, Eddie Marsan
Mike Leigh paints an energetic picture of London, as seen through the eyes of Poppy – a 30-something primary school teacher, with an eccentric fashion sense and a compulsive need to joke. All the time. At everything.
The greatest challenge to her levels of happiness arrives in the form of a driving instructor who is deeply unhappy, verging on manic. He develops an unhealthy obsession with Poppy that culminates in violence and anger. But before we reach the violence and anger, we are treated to some achingly good comedy as the instructor attempts to impose the rules of the road on his most unruly student ever. Poppy stands for everything the driving instructor hates, and he ends up falling obsessively in love with her free spirit.
When she’s not taking lessons – be it driving classes, dancing or trampolining – Poppy is a devoted teacher. It’s clear what makes Poppy good at her job. She wears vibrant colours and jangly jewellery, she calls the children her ‘mates’ and when she finds a pupil bullying, she wants to find out what’s making him so angry. It doesn’t take a genius to work out that Poppy is the extra child in the class.
At moments during the film, one wonders what will happen when Poppy is forced to abandon the jokes and admit that she’s not always happy. If there are low-key moments, they only appear when she takes herself off for walks around London, usually after dealing with troubled souls. But happiness is always quickly restored again, and the jokes return – even after a scene with a homeless man that must have left every woman in the cinema wincing at Poppy’s recklessness.
For a lot of the film, I couldn’t help wondering – when is someone going to tell Poppy to stop being so annoying? To stop cracking jokes? Her flatmate in the film deserves a medal for patience. But then it hit me: the heroine of 'Happy Go Lucky' is meant to bug the life out of us. Mike Leigh didn’t want to give us a heroine we liked. He produced a heroine to annoy us. And then he made us like her, despite ourselves.
So when Mike Leigh does happy, he does it with a twist. He allows us to understand that happiness can come from the most unexpected places and people – even from a joker like Poppy.
Comments
Comment #1 | Posted by Celine
Interesting Karen! I feared for Poppy, and sometimes winced at her relentlessly chipper outlook, but I didn't find her annoying. I found her exhausting and exhilarating...
Comment #2 | Posted by an unknown user
What a relief! I thought it was only me. All the reviews I've read almost without exception find Poppy a hugely likeable and attractive character -I found her immensely irritating and one-dimensional - completely unlike anyone I've ever met. A character doesn't attain depth and complexity simply by insertion of what felt like a completely random scene involving her talking to a homeless drunk late at night. When I voiced a couple of these thoughts to Mike Leigh at a Q and A after a screening of the film he suggested my lack of empathy with the lead character sprung from some kind of inherent sexism which made me unable to identify with her. Obviously I was very grateful that he'd cleared that up for me.
Comment #3 | Posted by cris
I nearly walked out half way through because I also found Poppy so implausable and irritating. But what a great performance from the driving instructor who I believed so much more than that silly girl. As to Mike Leigh's comments, he sounded as if he was being too defensive to me.
Comment #4 | Posted by Matt
I completely disagree with the majority of your comments, and particularly the rating you gave this film.
I'm a Londoner and found its representation as a City often forced, backed up only by the falseness and one dimensional Poppy, which I believe was entirely an accident. No depth to her character is exposed beyond regurgitated ideas of the 'cheeky chappy' type girl, and the other characters left little to be desired. I enjoy Mike Leigh tremendously and thought this film, whether or not he had directed it, would most certainly be my 'cuppa', so to speak.
In fact, it came across to both me and my partner as a forced, limited attempt to grip on to a trend, picture, idea (whatever you'd like to call it) of 'happy go lucky' females represented by those such as Lily Allen, or Aygness Deyn, or perhaps just our favourite character from 'the Square'. Crappy Go Unlucky for me I'm afraid!
