Happy-Go-Lucky

21 May 2018

Happy-Go-Lucky 2007

• Director: Mike Leigh
• Based on book: no
• Cast: Sally Hawkins, Alexis Zegerman, Eddie Marsan, Stanley Townsend, Samuel Roukin
• Personal “oh yeah him/her” reaction, i.e. have seen this actor in:
• Sally Hawkins – The Hollow Crown, Great Expectations, Jane Eyre, Never Let Me Go, An Education, Little Britain, Twenty Thousand Streets under the Sky, Vera Drake
• Eddie Marsan – Their Finest Hour, River, Filth, The World’s End, Snow White and the Huntsman, Sherlock Holmes Game of Shadows, Merlin, Sherlock Holmes, V for Vendetta, Vera Drake, 21 Grams, Gangs of New York
• Stanley Townsend – The Hollow Crown, Quirke, One Chance, Sherlock, Flawless, Hustle, Inside I’m Dancing, The Libertine
• Samuel Roukin – The Hollow Crown, The Decoy Bride, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Bright Star
• Why? Mike Leigh. Good film.
• Seen: 19 May 2018      

       Knowing Mike Leigh, this isn’t as happy-go-lucky as the title. The starting music is upbeat with Poppy (Hawkins) biking jauntily through London. Even in the face of a grumpy bookshop assistant, a stolen bike, a crowded tube ride she retains her chirpy cheer. Even with the bitter, racist, resentful paranoid driving instructor Scott (Marsan).

       She has endless energy for the kids in the primary school where she works, for partying and boozing with her friends, for dancing the flamenco. She has compassion for the mad tramp she encounters on her way home at night, with the abused boy in her class.

       So it’s not all cherry. She’s not dim. She sees the dark side. And makes her choice.

       This is, after all, Mike Leigh.

4 * of 5