Happy-Go-Lucky out on DVD 18th August
Wow. When Mike Leigh goes comic, he really goes for it. Happy-Go-Lucky , the tale of Poppy, a North London primary school teacher with a very un-London persistently sunny nature and a whole host of whacky quips, gets driving lessons and talks too much. That's the film. The latest Mike Leigh film. No, really.
Here's the trailer:
"From the acclaimed director of Secrets and Lies and Vera Drake" comes this... what? Evidently, Leigh's got sick of the deep stuff and decided to have some fun.Well, everyone's entitled to that once in a while.
Let's just remind ourselves of what Leigh is capable of:
(Naked , 1993)(Secrets and Lies, 1996) Spoiler alert!
In contrast to this excellent back catalogue, Happy-Go-Lucky puts the interestingly intense character (Eddie Marsan as Poppy's driving instructor, Scott, a wonderfully controlled, tense performance) on the back burner, and concentrates instead upon the flighty Poppy, who, at three points in the movie, reveals a surprising inner strength (with an abused child, with her sister, with her driving instructor), but is otherwise very, very annoying to watch. Sorry. She is.
This is not to say that Leigh has to keep making the same kinds of films all his life, but, with Happy-Go-Lucky, Leigh has given us a character who encounters some difficult moments, and yet remains "eerily unaffected by this, or anything else. The effect is a kind of odd and steely invulnerability: not unattractive exactly, but disconcerting" (thank you Peter Bradshaw ). By "this," he means by the climactic run-in with her driving instructor, a fuse waiting to go off. For me, it's more than "unattractive," it overshadows the meandering path of the film, its quirky stance against all the misery and irony in the world.
Happy-Go-Lucky is more of a character study than Leigh's other films - which often deal so well with the weight of shared history upon complex relationships - and yet here is a character with no arc whatsoever. What is there to study? Leigh has had to defend Poppy against accusations of being "a bit one-note," but he doesn't do it too well, because the accusation is correct:
Sarfraz Manzoor: Initially, I thought she came across as a bit one-note - as in she's perky and nothing fazes her. But over the course of the film, she does become more complicated and reveals different levels.
Mike Leigh: As far as I'm concerned, you could be forgiven, especially with the scene where they've gone clubbing and they're being silly having had a few drinks, you could be forgiven for thinking at that point, "Can I actually spend a couple of hours with this person?"
SM: You almost agree with me then?
ML: I am agreeing, but I'm saying that it's pretty much straight away that you start to get the hang of what she's actually about, and I don't think there's any real reason to go on thinking that [she's one-note]. When she gets into the car with Scott - I mean, he's so ludicrous that she just deals with it, her sense of humour takes over.
(from The Guardian interview at BFI Southbank, London)
I'm agreeing, too. Her scenes with her driving instructor do hint to greater depths within Poppy, but hints are all we get.
Sally Hawkins won the Silver Bear at this year's Berlinale, for Best Actress, and an interview with her on the DVD's extra show some of the reason's why: she can really maintain a different accent! No really, she does a great job of sinking into the role, and should take the credit for making her more likeable and less of a simple clown with a bad line in some very odd non-sequiturs.
Perhaps I just didn't get it. In which case, please do help me out. The Berlinale audience, who saw the film's premiere, were keen. I'm not. The DVD's out next week, so now you can make your mind up in the comfort of your own home. And in the security of knowing that you have a fast forward button.
To contact the author: