Happy-Go-Lucky
Happy-Go-Lucky
Directed by: Mike Leigh
Cast: Sally Hawkins, Eddie Marsan, Alexis Zegerman, Samuel Roukin
Time: 2 hrs
Rating: R
Plot: Poppy (Hawkins) is a woman who is always wearing a smile on her face. She walks through life always looking for the positive spin on things in North London with her friends.
Who’s It For? Are you convinced that sunshine always beats rain? This is a film that will test the theory. It’s actually tough to say if this is for people who can’t stand the annoying over-talker in the group, or for those who have no idea they are the one who just can’t shut up.
Expectations: I have been a fan of Leigh but it comes down to one film: Topsy-Turvy. Otherwise Secrets & Lies and Career Girls underperformed for me.
SCORECARD (0-10)
Actors:
Sally Hawkins as Poppy: It’s an amazing piece of acting, and I couldn’t stand it. Poppy won’t stop talking, and rarely is it about anything important. The key here is that her happiness is tested … her non-stop lollipop view of the world. Right from the beginning you get a sense of Poppy’s spirit when her bike is stolen and she’s upset because she didn’t get a chance to say good-bye. Here’s the problem, I find this type of person unbalanced and frankly I don’t believe in their outlook most of the time. I mean, back pain makes her laugh. I could actually see this performance being nominated and Hawkins does put her all into this performance. It’s not about me liking the character, it’s about respecting the actor.
Score: 8
Eddie Marsan as Scott: Scott is the unbalanced driving instructor. You’re not really sure what role he plays in Poppy’s life at first. Is she flirting? Does she simply want him to smile more? But there is a nice odd relationship of two people with totally different backgrounds and attitudes forced into a tiny car. If Marsan looks familiar, he’s the bad guy that serves no real purpose in the film Hancock.
Score: 6
Samuel Roukin as Tim: Tim comes out of no where to be the love interest. And here’s where the problems of the film become obvious. He seems terribly normal and nice. So I kept thinking, what the hell is he doing thinking Poppy is a great person to hang out with? Surely not everyone from North London can be like this. It doesn’t add up.
Score: 5
Alexis Zegerman as Zoe: Zoe is the right-hand-woman of Poppy’s. They have lived together for over a decade. There isn’t nearly enough exploring done with this relationship. They pretty much just hang out. There is no tension when Poppy finds a boyfriend. Zoe seems totally fine with spending less time with Poppy even though, for the most part, they are like an old married couple.
Score: 4
Talking: Very quickly you notice all conversations between Poppy and her friends are pointless. It’s the insanely quick, back and forth comments that fills up otherwise lovely silence. It’s the mood they create with these words, not what is actually being said. So you drift away, and then whenever anything real is said, it’s like you’ve become aware a hint too late. And couldn’t they have thrown me one little, “Poppy peed on my sofal!” from “Seinfeld”? Also, it took me until the credits to officially know if they were calling her Poppy or Puppy.
Score: 2
Sights & Sounds: North London looks bleak and the camera work inside the car scenes with Poppy and Scott are extremely close-up to create a hint of claustrophobia. It works for the moments, since I felt relief every time Poppy got out of the car … But is that really the feeling you want to create for a slice-of-life drama?
Score: 3
OVERALL
Yes, Sally Hawkins does an amazing job, but she also plays a type of person that the majority of us can’t stand. It’s beyond Poppy’s positive outlook. I can handle and appreciate that, but it’s the constant diarrhea of the mouth (an awful phrase that fits in this situation) that kills the film. I don’t believe in the happiness because Poppy never sits still to take it all in. She actually displays all the necessary signs of being on too many anti-depressants, though no one brings up that angle in the film.
Final Score: 4/10
Thanks from Oscar nominees – Crazy Heart
City of Ember
Thanks from Golden Globes nominees – A Serious Man, Coraline
Remember Me
Lymelife
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Wow. Sounds like somebody needs a hug.
So, she’s happy and chatty. Does it worry you that you’d rather hang out with the Joker?
If I may posit a theory–you’re a tad on the dark side, aren’t you?
Everyone stay away from J. He’s ominous.
Man, I had to re-read my review after getting those quick attacks … from someone who works for me … Totally stand by the review.
If you see the movie we can further discuss, but discussing this with someone who might have seen the trailer … well, that’s pointless.
But I’ll give you this … given the option of being trapped in the elevator with either the Joker or Poppy, I’ll take the one with the bigger smile. More interesting conversations, I’m positive.
Douse her in vat of chemical acid and I’m sure Poppy could BE the Joker
“Wanna know how i got these smiles?!”
So…you see a happy, optimistic person and you’d like to dip them in acid? That makes you a weirdo.
“What the world needs now…is love…sweet love…”
SHUT THE HELL UP, BURT, YOU YAPPY MENACE!
Oh, and I didn’t actually SEE the movie, exactly, per se, in so many words, but the preview looks quite jaunty.
This is a tough one to argue, but I’m going to say no one here really wants to dip anyone in acid.
And happiness isn’t the issue. Blind happiness is the issue.
She’s a person who is sad … not because her bike is stolen … but because she didn’t get a chance to say good-bye to it.
This has great potential for a side character, not for the lead.
And yes, this is simply my opinion. That’s kind of the point.
J–
Why so serious? I was only funnin.’
And speak for yourself–there’s plenty of people I’d dip in acid.
Damn. You beat me to it. The old …
“whoa, whoa, whoa I was only joking around” card.
Well played.
Next time we hang out, I have a pencil trick I want to show you.
Too much?
easy kids.
i now need to see this movie, since i think i’ll see some of myself in the lead character. i like to consider myself an unflappable optimist. makes me wonder if my good friends also view me as “unbalanced.”
also, isn’t this a musical? how is that never mentioned in the review? seems important.
brian –
it’s not a musical, though it does have a score that is kinda pretty
See? Bri’s blindly happy, J. Oh…awkward…were you referring to him in the review?
“It’s actually tough to say if this is for people who can’t stand the annoying over-talker in the group, or for those who have no idea they are the one who just can’t shut up.”
folks – I’ve just come home from seeing this… can see why people think Poppy is annoying.. or rather, cloying.. but she is simply divine.. agree about exploring the relationship more between her and Zoe.. who I enjoyed also… and the climax between Poppy and Eddie was fairly powerful but ultimately unsatisfying… the sibling get together also was promising but ultimately didn’t quite get there.. maybe it’s all about not quite reaching orgasm? (joke) it is a lovely film..and Sally plays Poppy superbly.. it is funny (I’m a Brit so perhaps some of the humour works better for me..) but doesn’t quite get there….
okay, now i see what’s going on. i clicked on happy go lucky in yahoo and it sent me to this:
http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1800246558/info
i didn’t notice the date. apparently this is not the move being discussed above. though, it does sound interesting…
Happy Go Lucky–1937–An American pilot disappears with a specially designed plane in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. His wife, on a subsequent trip to Shanghai, comes across a singer entertaining at a club who is a dead ringer for her missing husband. She believes he must have amnesia when he claims to have never met her. Cloak and dagger twists and turns ensue in this decidedly odd musical!
I saw this with my wife last night and we agreed immediately that Poppy is one of the most annoying film characters we have ever encountered. She is relentlessly and inappropriately cheerful. She sometimes tries to draw people into her rose-colored world against their will, with little success (the bookstore guy, the homeless man, her pregnant sister) or near disaster (Scott).
The trait I appreciate about her, despite her silly manner, is her courage and compassion. The scene under the viaduct with the scary mentally-ill guy is amazing. Her sensitive handling of the abused boy in her classroom also shows considerable strength of character. It’s this side of her that I think Tim responds to when they get together. He doesn’t see her at her giddy worst, but but rather as a caring, empathetic teacher.
The character I like best from the film is Zoe, the roommate. I respond to that type of sarcastic world-weary attitude. Her relationship with Poppy is probably the most intriguingly ambiguous in the film. There are several hints that they are uniquely close, as someone said above, like an old married couple. That, I take to mean, intimate, but not sexually involved. I can’t see how Zoe is not involved with some guy.
There was an additional dimension of annoyance for me in this movie. The accent, or rather the vocal mannerisms, of Poppy reminded me strongly of some of the characters played by British comedienne Catherine Tate. In Tate’s show those who speak this way are portrayed as empty headed and clueless, and it was hard for me to entirely absolve Poppy of this judgment.
Oh, they just kept squawking away like that the entire movie, did they?
My girlfriend and I managed to get through half an hour before we looked at each other, nodded, and ran for the exit.
I don’t know how Rotten Tomatoes has this at a 93%.
It was impossibly irritating.
I completely agree with Jeff’s review.
We suffered through the first half hour of the movie, at the Balboa Threatre in San Francisco.
Fortunately, the theater suffered a black-out. Never before have my wife and I actually been glad to have a blackout during a movie.
I would just like to say that Dimitri and Trevor are brilliant, perceptive individuals.
I’m with ya, Jeff.
What also made the movie unbearable was the stereotypical “quirky” music. Every 30 seconds. Sheesh.
plink… plink-plink… plink-plink-plink…
As a mental health professional I can tell you that anti-depressents don’t make you goofy and happy like that; they merely get you back to a baseline. You’re either thinking about uppers of some sort, or you are a TOTAL IDIOT, or both.
Bizriak —
I don’t think I am a total idiot. Though I really don’t know (beyond typing this message) how to prove it. So perhaps you have won this round, after all as a mental health professional, you clearly understand how to make a focused point without belittling the other … wait a minute, that total idiot thing was an insult?! Damn you and your made up name bizriak.
And just so you know, if you do some more research, you will find documented cases of people being over-prescribed Prozac and it leading to the “high” of a bi-polar state. And that “high” could be in the same ballpark as Poppy.
I’m late to the party, but what the heck. Jeff – I think you got it exactly right. I watched it based on the trailers and I kept waiting for the happy, cheerful movie to start.
The poor guy in the bookstore in the opening scenes – she’s portrayed as “cheering him up” but I don’t get why having someone badger you while you’re trying to work is seen as cheerful. He wasn’t awful to her, he just didn’t participate in her inanities. Even though it was clear he didn’t want to chat, she just kept pushing and pushing until she got her way, even if she had to annoy him to get a response.
I thought the scene in which she laughs through the back pain appointment was meant to show us that her so-called happiness was just a facade, the only face she knows how to show the world. I guess I still see it that way, though from my reading I’m clearly in the minority opinion.
The only times I could relax and enjoy the film were during the two most tense scenes, while she confronted the driving instructor and talked with the man in the park. Those were the only times she related to people in a way that seemed genuine. Her restlessness during the other scenes, her need to keep everyone smiling and laughing to keep the dark away, felt desperate and false, and made me quite jittery.
I think I could have enjoyed this film if I hadn’t been led to believe it was a “feel-good” film. I could have enjoyed a story of a desperate woman driven to keep anything dark from marring her world, and only finding a little relief when she allowed reality in. I’d have liked a pay-off to understand the source of her desperation, but I would have liked it exactly as it was, too. In this case the advertising absolutely ruined a decent film for me.
Thanks for writing the review; I was starting to think I was a curmudgeon for disliking the movie. After writing this, I realize I really disliked being misled more than I disliked the film. And if I am a curmudgeon, at least I’ve got company now. Cheers.
bizriak Dec 25th, 2008 at 3:22 pm
As a mental health professional I can tell you that anti-depressents don’t make you goofy and happy like that; they merely get you back to a baseline. You’re either thinking about uppers of some sort, or you are a TOTAL IDIOT, or both.
_______________
Well, Bizriak, as a former mental health patient, I can tell you that anti-depressants can make you goofy and happy as it’s happened to me many times. Apparently you’re a lousy mental health professional and should think of a different line of business, meat. Oh, and you shouldn’t be in the mental health business if you go around calling people idiots for being right.
well to each his own but i thought this movie was a great work of art and Poppy is the most fascinating heroine ive seen in a long time. people tend to take shit too seriously and Poppy’s battle against that was amazing to watch. also i dont find her annoying at all, instead i find her charming and fun with a great sense of humor.