Happy-Go-Lucky
PG Dir Mike Leigh, featuring Sally Hawkins, Eddie Marsan, Alexis Zegerman
By Ruth Hessey
By now even people who don't like Mike Leigh's films have heard of his process - months of improvisatory research with the actors, until they are living in the skin of characters who take charge of the narrative as soon as they can walk it around. The approach has created some brilliant films (Secrets and Lies, Vera Drake, Naked, High Hopes) and given actors like Brenda Blethyn, Imelda Staunton, David Thewlis and Timothy Spall the opportunity to be shine brightly. Leigh can coax humanity from the most torturous circumstances, and warmth from a rock. But if you don't like his lead actors, you won't like the films.
Happy-Go-Lucky has a few other problems beside a slightly annoying lead character - Sally Hawkins has the charisma to win us over despite her Poppy's relentless optimism. She's a village personality in an unfriendly metropolis, and her good heartedness ultimately prevails. The standard Mike Leigh diatribe arrives on cue via Poppy's driving instructor. Heroically and splenetically delivered by Eddie Marsan, his paranoid riffs are worthy of YouTube.
Overall Happy-Go-Lucky doesn't quite tie together: an interlude with a homeless man feels contrived, and for all its hilarity, a flamenco lesson with a Spanish dance teacher (played by Karina Fernandez) feels like an actor's party piece. Leigh's interest in the way we are taught to manage our personal implosions, and thereby how to be happy despite what happens to us, is the film's core. But despite a big heart, the rest of the film feels tacked on.