Happy-Go-Lucky

An surprisingly upbeat film from Mike Leigh but one that, on reflection, sits neatly alongside his bleaker productions. Sally Hawkins plays Poppy, an irrepressibly cheery primary school teacher who refuses to let anything or anyone bring her down. Like Naked, Leigh's movie is primarily concerned with character rather than plot. Not an awful lot happens in Happy-Go-Lucky; it's more about how other people respond to Poppy's giggle, effervescent personality.

The biggest ask that the film makes of its audience is to believe that somebody like Poppy might actually exist. Somebody who quite happily chats to tramps in the dead of night, whose only reaction to a stolen bike is a slight sigh and a shrug of the shoulders. Many reviewers have responded warmly to the character of Poppy, but would anyone respond so warmly were they to meet this person in real life? Watching Poppy interact with her sarcastic flatmate and younger sister is almost like watching a sketch from The Catherine Tate Show. You keep waiting for the punch line, but the whole thing is gleefully free of any irony.

Leigh's message appears to be that by thinking happy we can be happy. Poppy might not have a mortage and pension scheme planned out, like her pregnant, sensible younger sister, but she's got her friends and she likes her job. Life's how you look at it, innit? If this is meant to be a cheer-giving message adroitly sent to us in the midst of the recession then it's an awfully glib one. By setting its cap against all hte cynics out there, Leigh has ensured that any critics of Happy-Go-Lucky can easily be branded as miserable, glass-half-empty-type people.

Hawkins' energetic performance goes a long way in helping you take Poppy at face value, but there's a troubling aspect to her personality that is hard to dispel, something that's evident in two of the movie's sadder, more poignant moments. In the first, Poppy is concerned for a pupil who is a victim of family abuse, but this quickly turns into an opportunity to net a dishy social worker. In the second, Poppy has a heated confrontation with her racist, homophobic, deeply insecure driving instructor (Eddie Marsan, terrific). He crumbles in front of her, but Poppy doesn't seem to bat an eyelid. Is this down to Poppy's inherent ability to always look on the bright side, or is it a coldbloodedness that allows her to skip through life without becoming deeply involved in other people's problems? It's a question that's not really answered, and one that I kept thinking about after seeing the film. Although Happy-Go-Lucky ambles along rather nicely, it's still a conflicted work and one that feels more smug than anything else.