So I was absolutely desperate to see Happy-Go-Lucky at the Cornerhouse cinema last night and boy did it deliver. Sally Hawkins is utterly believeable in the stupidly happy role and she plays it completely without irony.
I was talking about this film in work on Tuesday night and I was saying "Well it's called Happy-Go-Lucky and the main character it totally optimistic about everything and tries to spread that love around. But you know, I'm sure something happens at the end where it falls spectacularly apart."
But it didn't, I was waiting for it. Bad things do happen to good people. And people can't be that happy all of the time. But Poppy can, and you believe it, and you love her. Even though everyone around her wants to protect her as they think she's secretly harbouring some massive depression. She's not. She's just like that.
I'm not sure that Mike Leigh, also director of Vera Drake, is trying to make any kind of profound statement about optimism, happiness or the intrinsic British trait of expecting everything to go wrong at any given moment. I think he was trying to make a lovely film, about a lovely character who handles her life in the most peculiar but spectacular way. She always knows what to say, but not in a smart arse way that makes you want to hate her. Occasionally the dialogue is a little cringeworthy and the extremely quick comebacks seem a little planned sometimes. But nothing can take away from the genuine niceness of this film.
Everyone needs a little bit of Poppy in their lives. And I'll defintely be buying th DVD to watch when I feel a dark cloud passing overhead.
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