you can't laugh at everything
Added 11/21/2009
This grade school teacher is a very modern millie who appears to laugh at everything;
even when the joke isn't funny.
All the flip remarks are certainly no substitute for intelligent conversation?
As her room mate puts it she should stop trying to be too nice.
When she does get real with her driving instructor
because he has fallen for her happy face that hides
her inner troubles, there is an end.
This movie was a hard one to watch:
she looked to me to be someone who might need a bodyguard
when she tries to make friends with a looney street person.
Some people are drawn to people who behave like silly half wits,
but not me.
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Helps you get happy
Added 11/8/2009
I saw this film in the theatre 3x. I'm a big fan of the director and especially of this film. Now I own it and actually use it as therapy for some of my depressed friends!
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I don't like to bring up other films when I can avoid it, but with a director with as distinct a style as Leigh, I'd find it very difficult to do otherwise. I think what he does best I could roughly describe as proximity. His films seem to have a knack for eliciting and estranging some particular trait and then allowing things to settle as they may, or may not. He has also proved quite masterful at tone and almost always garners extraordinary performances out of actors, which is what I found somewhat puzzling in this film.
From the open, the film seems to embrace a rather Woody Allen-y flavor of blase. Slowly, though, the sound of metal against concrete is introduced and gradually prolonged like a record skipping worse and worse as the merry-go-round begins to come off its wheel and characters such as the driving instructor are introduced. I think that Leigh far more successfully handles some things he was looking for in the quirky playfulness of "Topsy-Turvy" here, but the ending felt throwaway, trope-ish, oddly sarcastic and quite out of character with the film and anything else I've seen Leigh do. I wouldn't say it fails because of it, but I wouldn't say it succeeds, either. It just comes off as what I might almost describe as a double-sneer, and thus kinda looks a little ridiculous.
My only real, tangible grievance with this film, however, is the performance of Sally Hawkins. It's not that her approach to the uncomfortability of Poppy didn't work--I think it did. At times, however, I feel that she let herself become far too comfortable with that uncomfortability, and, at the times she does, it comes across as far too Jim Carey meets Robin Williams, and incredibly dismissible--which unfortunately eliminates the discomfort of the viewer, or, at least, replaces it with something undesirable like disbelief or boredom.
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Made for an Oscar
Added 11/2/2009
The story was plain boring, borderline "made for an Oscar" movie. Yes, we are in a time of "world crisis", so the solution is Poppy-me! The way to be happy-go-lucky is to have a drink in a bar, harass an unstable driver instructor, and find out what does make one a bully. Of course, then you shall find prince charming.
The only problem with the movie and the premise is that there are better movies with the same premise. I do rather go happy-go-lucky with Brazilian or Bollywood movies. Better plots, more fun music, and happiness having many more varied forms.
The actors were ok, the plot quite obvious, and the outcomes of Poppy's actions never lead to any conflict. There many cliches in the movie, but what would have made the movie better was if at all the character was lead to some conflict. Poppy's happiness is kind of washed out, the happiness of people who have gone too far believing on something, and then look back wishing life was something else. As a comedy, the jokes are not very funny. As a feel-good movie, it just made me feel great: if someone calls this happy-go-lucky, then I should be joy-going-amazing ...
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Intriguing tale of an unabashed blithe spirit
Added 10/20/2009
Mike Leigh's "Happy-Go-Lucky" has a lot to recommend it, not least being a star turn by little-known (at least on this side of the pond) Sally Hawkins as Poppy, the happy-go-lucky character of the title. Poppy is a human cherry soda with a healthy splash of vodka - full of life, almost overly sweet, and just a bit dangerous.
It's interesting that someone could make a movie where the key question is, can someone really go through life reacting to every single thing with a positive attitude? Such a person is Poppy, an effervescent bohemian elementary school teacher in London. Poppy's the kind of gal who responds to her bike being stolen as creating an opportunity to drive. She responds to virtually every line in a conversation with a little joke or pun and a friendly snicker. She's not a wise-acre, or a comedian who's "always on" - she's just walking on the sunny side of the street every blasted day.
Life eventually conspires to put roadblocks in her path as she meets new people, including the troubled, the homeless, and the perfect (a late-movie candidate for Serious Boyfriend is just a bit too much from Central Casting to be believed). Some of these folks react to Poppy with delight, others with fear, and one in particular with blinding rage as her friendliness is mistaken for flirtatiousness. Eventually even Poppy confronts a person that even she cannot abide.
Why only three stars? Perhaps I'm being unfair - I like much of this movie, not least the fact that "HGL" is one of those charming British movies where you almost need subtitles to understand the dialect. This isn't a movie where Judie Dench is ripping off perfectly enunciated sentences to John Gielgud - this is a Street Movie where characters talk like real people. Sure, you lose something in the process, but the rhythm gets you where you need to go.
Unfortunately the sad fact is that this movie is essentially without a plot. The story is just about Poppy and her daily life. We see her interact with a few people, many of whom are in one scene and then vanish. Sure, there's a bit of conflict with her driving instructor and a bit of romance, but essentially we're watching Poppy waltz through life. I confess that I like a bit more plot on the bones of my movies - it's the same reason why "2001" has never done anything for me. Perhaps that makes me a Philistine, but there you go.
I also have grave problems with one scene where Poppy goes off by herself at night to confront a homeless man. Poppy, a super-sweet girl who just might be able to take down a butterfly as long as it didn't get the jump on her, should know much better than to take such a stupid risk in London. Perpetual cheerfulness is fine, but it doesn't help you in every situation. My problem with this scene is that it was so unrealistic and stupid a maneuver that it reminded me that I was watching a movie. It reminded me to stop suspending my disbelief, and everything that followed this scene felt contrived.
As a result, I must put "HGL" in the category of Good Film That I Have No Interest in Watching Again for a Long Time, if Ever. Thus, three stars.
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