X
- 2008
- R
- Miramax
- 1 h 58 m
- 2008
- R
- Miramax
- 1 h 58 m
Summary Just how hard is it to be happy? Poppy is an irrepressibly free-spirited school teacher who brings an infectious laugh and an unsinkable sense of optimism to every situation she encounters, offering us a touching, truthful and deeply life-affirming exploration of one of the most mysterious and often the most elusive of all human qualiti...
Directed By: Mike Leigh
Written By: Mike Leigh
- 2008
- R
- Miramax
- 1 h 58 m
- 2008
- R
- Miramax
- 1 h 58 m
Happy-Go-Lucky
6.9
Where to Watch
Summary Just how hard is it to be happy? Poppy is an irrepressibly free-spirited school teacher who brings an infectious laugh and an unsinkable sense of optimism to every situation she encounters, offering us a touching, truthful and deeply life-affirming exploration of one of the most mysterious and often the most elusive of all human qualiti...
Directed By: Mike Leigh
Written By: Mike Leigh
Where to Watch
Top Cast
Metascore
Universal Acclaim
Based on 34 Critic Reviews
84
91% Positive
31 Reviews
31 Reviews
9% Mixed
3 Reviews
3 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
Metascore
Universal Acclaim
Based on 34 Critic Reviews
84
91% Positive
31 Reviews
31 Reviews
9% Mixed
3 Reviews
3 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
British director Mike Leigh has made the first great comedy for our new depression.
I thought "Topsy-Turvy" was perfection, a spirited evocation of the partnership of Gilbert and Sullivan, plus a blithely definitive depiction of the artistic process. Happy-Go-Lucky is perfection too, assuming you go along with its leisurely pace, which I did quite happily.
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 56 User Ratings
6.9
70% Positive
39 Ratings
39 Ratings
18% Mixed
10 Ratings
10 Ratings
13% Negative
7 Ratings
7 Ratings
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 56 User Ratings
6.9
70% Positive
39 Ratings
39 Ratings
18% Mixed
10 Ratings
10 Ratings
13% Negative
7 Ratings
7 Ratings
HAPPY-GO-LUCKY is easily one of the best films I've ever seen so far. It's od-ly enjoyable and I smile every time I watch this.
Sally Hawkins is amazingly brilliant! Her performance as (like the movie's title) Happy-Go-Lucky woman and humble person melted my heart. The movie has a beautiful message for us.
Again, Sally Hawkins is the heart and soul of this hilarious, powerful and funny Britain picture.
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While not a film that will make you belly laugh, "Happy-Go-Lucky" teaches us that we can make the small things in our daily lives fun and that we can be optimistic about everything. We may not be perfect, but we can follow her example and be optimistic.
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Happy-Go-Lucky isn't one of Leigh's epic social canvases like "Secrets & Lies" or even "Topsy-Turvy"; rather, it's an edgy character study whose message only gradually emerges.
No list of the year's best performances should be made without her (Sally Hawkins).
It's a powerful argument for optimism.
That's the film's problem: Leigh's creation is fixed and unchangeable, admirably optimistic as a person but completely unengaging as a movie character.
Films with positive and uplifting themes are currently desirable. We need, as a society, instruments to convey this kind of messages and allow us to be better and act better. And this film is very good, engaging, cheerful and inspiring.
The script is undoubtedly one of its main strengths: original, creative, positive and lively, it revolves around Poppy, a primary school teacher who insists on looking at life on the positive side, always showing happiness, with a smile on his face and a joke on the tip of his tongue. She is one of those people who would be able to raise the morale of a funeral and who does good to all the surrounding people, starting with the small revolted child and ending with the bitter and permanently unsympathetic driving instructor.
The main problem with all this is that the success of the film depends largely on how the viewer accepts the character. People who, like me, sympathize with her, will see and probably like the film, while people who are irritated by her permanent joy and inability to take anything seriously will probably leave the theater on the first half hour. In fact, just as there are many people who like to see the bright side of life, there are also a lot of people for whom this is unacceptable, it is taking the seriousness of serious matters and making life a joke. Another important problem with this film, for me, is its slow pace and excessive length. When I saw the film, I felt that the story told dragged on at several moments, and it did not justify two hours length. There are several scenes that, on the editing table, could have been shortened without damaging the film, shortening it by about half an hour.
The cast is good and does a nice job. Of course, Sally Hawkins is the actress who carries the film with a well-made performance, which can be viewed in many ways. In fact, if we want, we can observe the work of the actress and question Poppy's psychology: if it is true that there are a lot of people who use her contagious joy to hide very hard bitterness or severe depressions, we can question how far Poppy is happy and if her joy was not also a psychological defensive mechanism. There are moments when the character reveals a more serious, sensitive side, and these are nuances that the actress knew how to explore. Eddie Marsan makes a good counterpoint in the role of Scott, the driving instructor, and offers us interesting film work around dislike and anger.
Technically, the film is quite regular and does not bring us anything truly remarkable, except for a few details, such as the discreet use **** soundtrack, the realistic sets and the colorful and cheerful costume of Poppy, which displays everything what the character is inside. The detail of the boots is particularly interesting and revealing, since it is a type of footwear that brings together durability, versatility and comfort, which also reveal a certain relaxed pragmatism of the character. Mike Leigh's direction is solid and consistent. The cinematography is good, and I particularly liked the visual style, which seems a little inspired by Woody Allen, another director who offers us light and animated comedies.
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the main reason i find this movie inadequate is the same reason it got made in the first place. because the main character is always optimistic. i find that in most of those cases, it makes her naive and shallow. and it's trying to prove the point that constant cheeriness is a positive factor. all the rest in the movie is adequate. i find the driving instructor to be a very competent character, even though the movie tried to paint him as the character we're supposed to frown at. but i guess it gets a 5 because i have some sort of inner hatred against giggling women.
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C'est l'histoire d'une fille qui rigole tout le temps et qui nage dans le "bonheur", à moins que ce ne soit la simple "joie de vivre"... d'un certain côté, il en faut pour faire son boulot d'institutrice, partager l'appartement avec sa colocataire, se troncher au moins une fois par semaine (et plus si affinités), se coltiner la petite et la grande soeur. Le quotidien de bien des gens "heureux" et toujours de bonne humeur en somme... même si ça semble outré et trop "beau" pour être vrai.
Le problème est le suivant : a-t'on envie de voir ça à l'écran ? est-ce vraiment intéressant ? on peut se poser la question qui concerne d'ailleurs de nombreux films du genre "social". Le moniteur aigri de l'auto-école est le seul "bémol" dans la vie toute guillerette de Mademoiselle Fou-rire, car il est son exact contraire et semble du coup infiniment plus réaliste ou crédible qu'elle. Un professionnel du ciboulot ne manquerait pas de faire remarquer que la névropathe, c'est elle, car elle surcompense à plein régime tout en essayant de ramener le monde entier... à sa vision hilare du monde.
En tout cas, cette situation conflictuelle efface son sourire, au moins pour un temps. Il s'agit du seul bon point du film, toute cette partie avec le moniteur de conduite qui met en opposition le type dégoûté et la fille béate tête à claques, perdue dans son univers plein de couleurs et de blagues.
A part cela, le film ne fait qu'énumérer la litanie répétitive du bonheur de Mademoiselle Jememarre qui prend tout à la déconne. Et plus elle se marre... plus on s'ennuie !
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Through a mis-click I accidentally gave Mike Leigh's 'Another Year' a zero score when it deserved perhaps a 3. This one, however deserves the zero I'm giving it. One reviewer asks whether it's possible to enjoy the company of the world's most irritating woman, yet somehow finds the room to say 'yes'. I can't imagine why. Not only are half her lines made up of jokes that aren't actually infused with anything approaching wit, but she punctuates EVERY SENTENCE with this inhaled half-giggle -- perhaps a gasp-laugh -- that made me eventually put the sound off. I would have to ask whether it's possible to enjoy a movie that also has absolutely no plot. The plot is an incidental background upon which 'real life' plays out in all its unedited glory. Why did Leigh leave us watching school teachers making paper masks for their next day's class for A-G-E-S? Did he take a comfort break with the camera still running, and then decide to just leave it in? There is sort-of a climax towards the end, but it is merely a rare hot-point in one of the story-threads that comes out of nowhere, rather than a moment of resolution. At two hours, this movie runs for at least 45 minutes too long.
The main character is meant to appear happy, and perhaps she is what passes for it in Manchester. She seems rather to be a ditsy dullard who lollops around in a haze of tired slang detritus and blips of half-one-liners, blindly committed to not giving a care about what anyone else requires of her. She is endlessly bubbly, but (except for her three scenes of near-compassion on which this aimless movie seems to hinge) she achieves this veneer of cheerfulness by acting resolutely in her own interest, as though happiness is merely a matter of allowing nothing to faze you and allowing nothing to make demands of you.
As with Another Year, Mike Leigh seems to be examining a theme about which he knows very little. The treatment of happiness and 'message' (which is too strong a word for any conclusions one might draw) are clumsy and poorly analysed. The director's commitment to filming 'Real Life TM' comes across as muddled, paceless, lazy film-making, and all of this might not have mattered too much if the characters were engaging. Making them annoying instead of charming was a directorial risk that is hard to justify, and it continues to mystify me that none of this seems to have mattered to the majority of critics.
The director wants to show us real people doing real things, with messy unresolved real-life events, and not the neat, cliched Hollywood climax and denouement. I wonder why we should bother going to the cinema for that. A desperately abysmal film, among the worst I've ever seen.
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Production Company
Film4,
Ingenious Film Partners,
Special Treats Production Company,
Summit Entertainment,
Thin Man Films,
UK Film Council
Release Date Oct 10, 2008
Duration 1 h 58 m
Rating R
Tagline The one movie this fall that will put a smile on your face.
Awards
Golden Globes, USA
• 1 Win & 2 Nominations
Academy Awards, USA
• 1 Nomination
Alliance of Women Film Journalists
• 2 Wins & 8 Nominations
