I’m fairly certain that Happy-Go-Lucky is the first Mike Leigh film I have seen all the way through. I really want to check out his other work though. This film is saturated with such truth, grace, and depth that I now feel I have known the characters for years.
Happy-Go-Lucky features several characters of note. However, a young woman named Poppy, played pitch-perfectly by Sally Hawkins, is the main focus of the film. Poppy is a thirty-year-old school teacher living in London. She approaches the good, the bad, and the ugly of life with a dauntless spirit of idealistic optimism. No problems, including tumultuous relationships and a Nazi-ish driving instructor, seem to phase her Pollyanna-like personality. You might think that this uncompromising glass-half-full mentality would make her character, and thus the entire film, nearly unwatchable. However, Sally Hawkins is charming in the way she brings out the character’s many colors. Leigh’s film is a nearly-perfect exploration of the consequences, both negative and positive, of looking at the world through rose-colored glasses.
As I was watching this film, I thought about how stale and lifeless much of the cinema put out by commercial Hollywood has become. I see no connection between the characters I see on screen and the people I might encounter on the street on a daily basis. Happy-Go-Lucky is similar to Jonathan Demme’s film Rachel Getting Married in that both films feel incredibly organic. The actors infuse the characters with a heavy dose of reality. Therefore, I believe them. Hence, I have a wonderful time watching the movie.
I hope that young filmmakers are watching and studying films like Happy-Go-Lucky and Rachel Getting Married. These are the movies that remind me why I love the cinema. I agree with Hamlet that “the purpose of art is … as ‘twere … to hold a mirror up to nature.” Mike Leigh accomplishes this goal in ways that mainstream Hollywood directors can only dream of.
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