Happy-Go-Lucky (2008)

Highly Overrated But Still Good

Don't listen to the negative reviews

It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

Happy-Go-LuckyIt takes a lot of effort and a smart writer behind the screen to lead an audience through a 2 hour of journey with just conversations or talkative sequences and addition to that focusing only on a single character which makers tend to fail to do so for the audience may get tired of it but in here Mike Leigh has got it right and it bodes well for the tone of the movie too. Happy-Go-Lucky is, of course a writers work but in here if not for Sally Hawkins it would have been difficult for Mike to pull it off as Sally is everything that the plot, character and the environment that Happy-Go-Lucky seeks. Sally Hawkins steals the show with her rugged, soothing and sometimes funny acts and justifies herself as one of the finest actress in our time.

Acclaimed English independent writer-director Mike Leigh has a great eye and ear for details. Here, he directs much talented Sally Hawkins.Leigh portrays some months in the life of main character Poppy (Hawkins). The viewer gets to follow her in her everyday life, working as teacher, spending time with her friends, taking flamenco classes and doing her weekly driving lesson. There are no large-scale events, just the drama and comedy of life around her. Leigh's achievement is the way he makes these things so interesting and engaging for the viewer. The way he and actor Sally Hawkins connects with each other in the director-actor relationship is also quite impressive.

I'm not very good at reviewing movies like these, because they defy description by the usual methods. There isn't a definite plot, but there really is one. It's a comedy and a drama and an unnamed genre of film that has elements of both and none of those. It seems almost pointless at first, but it ends up being meaningful and captivating. Half the time I was bored and wanted to and watch something else, and the other half of the time I couldn't have been torn away. That's probably one of the biggest changes in opinion that I've ever had during the course of one film.I loved the latter half, but I thought the first half of the film was dangerously close to boring. In the beginning, Poppy seems to be happy and optimistic to the point of annoyance, like an overly frisky puppy that won't leave you alone when you've had a hard day at work. Oh, but give Mike Leigh and Sally Hawkins a little more time to work their magic. As the movie goes on, she stops being a caricature and becomes a living, breathing, wonderful person. The kind of person that adds so much more to the world than she takes away. Poppy made me examine myself, to see how optimistic and good-natured I really am. Nothing keeps her down for long, and even when her good intentions don't quite go the way she plans, she manages to make good decisions and do what's best for others. Poppy will go down in history as one of the most likable characters ever written.Sally Hawkins handles the role brilliantly. Similar to Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler, there just is never a sense that she's acting. It all seems so natural. She's so authentically dorky and kind and silly that I almost wish that I knew a person exactly like her. It took me a while to warm up to Happy-Go-Lucky's particular charms, but I'm so happy that I gave myself the opportunity to. This movie is most certainly not for everyone, but I know that there's a good chance that anyone with an open mind will love it.

One of these movies that kind of offer nothing. Or maybe, to be more exact, a bundle of clichés with no depth, not scratching even a bit below the surface. This is not a lesson about optimism or a guide for your life in any way. The central character of the movie is no apocalypse for anyone. She is just an optimist but heavily depressed if you ask me, with lots and lots of issues to resolve.This cheerful lady, borderline stupid actually, that goes through some quite ordinary stuff in her life, if you take out one of the incidents, in which she was kind of to blame as well. A group of girlfriends that are also really boring, leading a wasted lifestyle at night and teaching kids during the day. Nice! Some fragments of life lessons but such that are really obvious and for the simple-minded. In general, a movie with little to show, saved (if at all) by some glimpses of acting from some of the cast members. If you still watch it, you will find yourself constantly waiting for something to break the boredom and give some meaning. You will wonder why you're still watching it and haven't turned it off yet, and once it's over, you will be left with a feeling of lost time and maybe with some less IQ points, but for sure a couple of hours wasted...!