Happy-Go-Lucky (2008)
I've decided to try to finish this Mike Leigh blog thing because I am a completist.
Nearly there anyway...
Ah! Happy-Go-Lucky! I almost can't find the words with which to praise this film - I think I might just have to show my appreciation with some kind of dance.
It's about a woman called Poppy who is a primary school teacher. She has some driving lessons, her instructor is a bit of a weirdo, then she meets a bloke and, er, that's it.
Oh but there is so much more.
Poppy is an optimist. Poppy is THE optimist - not at all cloying, the performance is not mannered or OTT, Sally Hawkins plays it straight down the line with honestly and realness. I don't think I've ever fallen in love with a fictional character so instantly or deeply. I defy you not to do the same.
The driving instructor, Scott, is the exact opposite - a paranoid pessimist who is secret and closed to life. The collision between the two of them is archetypal and intense. It's a simple situation but it feels somehow epic in that car.
Eddie Marsan plays Scott - and his performance is equally immaculate. It's terrifying and harrowing. In a lesser film he would have been a serial killer - a much lesser film - there is nothing so banal here. He is a real monster from a real street with a real life.
I watched this film for the first time when I was suffering from labyrinthitis - which seems quite appropriate really as it did make me pretty spiritually dizzy.
It's glorious. See it. See it. See it. See it.
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