Happy-Go-Lucky, the most recent film from director Mike Leigh, stars Sally Hawkins as Poppy Cross, overly cheerful, single primary school teacher. The film follows Poppy through several days in her life, observing her relations with her friends and family, taking driving lessons, learning how to flamenco, and bringing new love into her life.
Your perception of this film will probably depend on how you feel about character studies. Because that's what this film is. It's an in-depth look at the character of Pauline 'Poppy' Cross ... and that's it. Poppy is in almost every scene in the film. All the other characters in the movie exist to provide development for Poppy's character. Family problems are viewed, but only so Poppy can gloss over them (and maybe show the origin of her happiness as a coping mechanism). If you like plot, then this movie is probably not for you. There's really not any conflict to speak of until about 2/3 into the movie. Does that mean it's not an interesting movie? Not necessarily. Mainly because Poppy is such a strange character to follow.
Watching the trailer, you might think that Poppy is portrayed as over-the-top. But the film is able to set up a character that is utterly happy about life and uber-optimistic but isn't naive or irritating. Leigh is able to accomplish this by introducing darkness into Poppy's life but not bruising her spirit. Judging from what I know about Leigh's previous films, it wouldn't have surprised me if Poppy would have been crushed into oblivion at the end of movie. I'm glad that didn't happened.
Happy-Go-Lucky does provide it's fair share of laughs. The early scenes with her hot-tempered driving instructor, who really is the polar opposite of Poppy's character, are quite funny, as well as the few scenes with the over-the-top flamenco dancer. But like I said before, the funny parts of the movie are tempered with enough strong doses of real life conflict to ground both the film and Poppy in reality.
Overall, it was an enjoyable movie experience. This might be a film where a second viewing would be helpful, just to get around all that British slang and style of talking. Kinsey said she needed subtitles.
Kinsey: 3 stars
Wade: 3 stars
Your perception of this film will probably depend on how you feel about character studies. Because that's what this film is. It's an in-depth look at the character of Pauline 'Poppy' Cross ... and that's it. Poppy is in almost every scene in the film. All the other characters in the movie exist to provide development for Poppy's character. Family problems are viewed, but only so Poppy can gloss over them (and maybe show the origin of her happiness as a coping mechanism). If you like plot, then this movie is probably not for you. There's really not any conflict to speak of until about 2/3 into the movie. Does that mean it's not an interesting movie? Not necessarily. Mainly because Poppy is such a strange character to follow.
Watching the trailer, you might think that Poppy is portrayed as over-the-top. But the film is able to set up a character that is utterly happy about life and uber-optimistic but isn't naive or irritating. Leigh is able to accomplish this by introducing darkness into Poppy's life but not bruising her spirit. Judging from what I know about Leigh's previous films, it wouldn't have surprised me if Poppy would have been crushed into oblivion at the end of movie. I'm glad that didn't happened.
Happy-Go-Lucky does provide it's fair share of laughs. The early scenes with her hot-tempered driving instructor, who really is the polar opposite of Poppy's character, are quite funny, as well as the few scenes with the over-the-top flamenco dancer. But like I said before, the funny parts of the movie are tempered with enough strong doses of real life conflict to ground both the film and Poppy in reality.
Overall, it was an enjoyable movie experience. This might be a film where a second viewing would be helpful, just to get around all that British slang and style of talking. Kinsey said she needed subtitles.
Kinsey: 3 stars
Wade: 3 stars
3 stars out of what? YAY! new post new post!
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