Happy Go Lucky

Writer/director Mike Leigh is a talent best known for realistic, intimate dramas of a mostly heartrending nature (Vera Drake, Secrets & Lies), but with the winning and non-tragic Happy Go Lucky he proves that positivity need not be less interesting. To call Happy Go Lucky a comedy would overstate its lighter charms and understate it subtlety of craft. It is not built around punchlines or slapstick and more often than not does not openly fish for audience laughter. Its comic nature, if it should be called that, stems from the effortless warmth of its story and characters.

Primary school teacher Poppy (a compulsively watchable Sally Hawkins) purposefully bucks the modern trend of doom and gloom. She goes about her humble life with laughter and reassurance, trying always to see a silver lining and put a smile on the face of a stranger or two. At the very start of the film her bike is stolen, and her response is not outrage or anger but instead sheer disappointment. "I didn't even get to say goodbye," she says aloud to herself. The result is that Poppy learns to drive, a decision that sets up the principal dilemma of the film (if there is one in this free-flowing gem). Poppy's driving instructor, Scott (Eddie Marsan), is Poppy's polar opposite. He sees ruin and conspiracy at every turn and very easily grows to a rageful boil at the slightest hint of conflict. Poppy's sessions in the car with him turn into a negotiation between the rational, clear-minded free spirit and the loose-cannon instructor. He wants her to wear flat shoes, "appropriate footwear" he calls it. She thinks she looks cute in her high heel boots and doesn't want to make the switch. With every maneuver she finds a bit of whimsy and humor and he conversely squashes it with his joyless frustration.

The climax of the film is rightfully ambiguous and much more intense than something so cheerful seems to have the right to be. It's a credit to the feature that Poppy is both abnormally joyful and realistically grounded and self-doubting. When she makes a turn down a dark corner early in the film to see to a disoriented, potentially mentally ill homeless man, she wonders aloud at one point "What am I doing here?" She makes every effort but she is no flutter brain. Her decision to be good is truly self-less and not a natural condition as has been typical of a certain number of carefree pixies who turn up in indie cinema as mentor's to dour male protagonists. Poppy takes the film all to herself, navigating with great sensitivity and intellect, the modern world in all its complexity. She is a fascinating, playful narrator and a unique pair of eyes. Even the simplest things such as a chiropractor appointment become fodder for her to spread cheer and tickle the audience with her unique and very sympathetic charm.

Grade: A