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Happy-Go-Lucky is a film directed by Mike Leigh that stars Sally Hawkins as an eternally ebullient grammar school teacher. There isn't really a plot per se although there is a subplot that takes the form of a series of driving lessons with a quirky instructor; the movie is more of a character study than anything else. I almost walked out of the movie about 5 minutes in. I didn't get it, thought the character was beyond silly, and was chiding myself for not watching the trailer and instead going by someone's recommendation. That being said, if you can survive the first 10 minutes (table setting for the rest of the film), the movie is hilarious. I was laughing so hard at a couple points that I missed some lines. No...the character isn't realistic, and her interactions with other characters is equally outlandish. But...it is a very enjoyable film nonetheless, and her performance is great. 4/5
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Dec 13, 2008 06:13
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She did act silly, but I'm sure she was lot smarter than she was letting on. I'm guessing she was using the airhead routine as a crutch so she wouldn't have to deal with the kind of emotional problems everyone around her seemed to be having. Hence her shock when she is confronted about it eventually. (But other times she did seem genuinely stupid - so I could be wrong) I enjoyed the long takes and felt that the writing and acting were both good. 4/5
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Apr 21, 2009 15:26
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This is one of those movies that may have been rated well by most of the critics, but comes off as a complete bore to me. You're following around a British gal as she does every-day things and giggles about from place to place with her girlfriends. Giggles and sighs every 2 seconds, wears a dozen obnoxiously loud bracelets on each wrist, and just is over-the-top goofy 24/7. But not funny goofy, obnoxious goofy. It's the perfect British air-head movie. This must be their version of a "valley girl". This was not entertaining; it makes you agitated at the end after having labored through it. Maybe it's something women would like to see (I can't think of anything in cinema to draw up a comparison to it). The one redeeming factor I can pull away from watching this is that I can warn others about it in this thread. 1.5/5 moolchaba fucked around with this message at 14:49 on Apr 27, 2009 |
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Apr 27, 2009 05:22
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A surprisingly weighty little film with well-rounded and complex characters. I can understand disliking it; if you don't like Poppy, then you probably don't want to spend two hours with her. Fortunately, I do. The film is amusing and surprisingly weighty. Poppy's interactions are a true joy to watch, whether it's with her friends or coming up against a bitter and paranoid driving instructor. While at times she does make some bad decisions ("Juggernaut!"), she's certainly not stupid. Quite the opposite, really. Definitely a 5-star film. 5/5
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Apr 29, 2009 19:11
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A few folks in my family subscribe to the pop-philosophy of positive attraction. You know, good things will happen merely by thinking happy thoughts. "Positive attracts positive" is their motto--in line with the science of our time, like phrenology. I don't know if it's a conscious trait of Poppy (Sally Hawkins), but in Happy-Go-Lucky she's an island of sickly sweetness in a sea of sour-faced fog goblins. The film is a series of vignettes testing the meddle of Poppy's new-aged spirituality. Christ, who knows? Maybe a smiling sprite like Ms. Hawkins character exists in real life. She annoyed me at first, but like poor service at the Olive Garden gradually I grew acclimatized. The flaw is in the design; perhaps the weakness is mine. I recognized Scott (Eddie Marsan) almost immediately. This dude is a seething, self-conscious ball of misdirected rage. This tight-rear end prick seems to delight in regimenting a slice of Poppy's life and always seems to loom over her like a psychotic sexual predator. Scott is a nihilist in this equation--his flustered rant against the NWO presumably is more realistic than the worldview espoused by his optimistic foil. It's an okay movie. I was expecting a chick flick and it ended up playing it back at numerous points, particularly the trippy scene with the homeless guy. I'd like to think I'm somewhere in the shady mean area between Poppy and Scott--bitter enough to know that usage-based billing is inevitable, but hopeful enough to download a low-budget British movie like this anyway. 3.
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Feb 22, 2011 02:44
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