Movie Review: Happy-Go-Lucky

Rating:

4/5

Verdict:

English social realist master of misery Mike Leigh builds a mostly upbeat film around the most irresistibly winning performance of the year

That master of grim social realism, Mike Leigh (

Secrets and Lies, Vera Drake

) has made movies with happy names before:

High Hopes

and

Life Is Sweet

spring to mind, but in both those cases the titles were bleakly ironic.

The main character of his new film is  ...  well, just as described, and there's something very apt about that rather old-fashioned term. Pauline Cross (Hawkins) is perpetually cheerful in a way that is almost out-of-date, Leigh suggests, underlining the point with her silly nickname, Poppy. Doesn't she realise that there's nothing to be happy about?

I won't spoil the moment by telling you what she says in the film's opening scene when she discovers her bike's been nicked, but it's a zinger line and it wins us over immediately. It inoculates us against the sense of nausea her relentless joyfulness might otherwise induce.

Poppy is a 30-something schoolteacher in North London (where it's always sunny, naturally), who shares a flat with her best mate Zoe (Zegerman) and spends her off-hours clubbing and doing everything (like taking flamenco lessons) "for a laugh".

Poppy is determined not to let the darkness in the world darken her outlook on life. "It's hard work being a grown-up," Zoe says, but Poppy makes it look easy. When she gets help for a disturbed young bully in her class, it has an unexpected happy spin-off for her. Even Scott (Marsan), a volcanically uptight racist bigot from whom she takes driving lessons, cannot dent her spirits. "The road to hell is paved with good intentions," he barks at her. "Oooh, that sounds good!" she chirps.

The film is less assured in the darker moments. The bully sub-plot is glib and sanitised   and there is a jarringly heavy-handed and out-of-place interlude involving a tramp.

But Marsan's dazzling performance, a festering counterpoint to the upbeat Poppy, gives us a bucketload of bravura moments. Under the camera's withering examination he creates one of the  most ferociously convincing neurotics. Watch the eyes and be amazed.

A couple of hours in Poppy's company will deal to the most stubborn case of the winter blues. "You can't please everybody," Zoe tells her,  but she's not listening. "There's no harm in trying," she replies.

Cast:

Sally Hawkins, Eddie Marsan, Alexis Zegerman

Director:

Mike Leigh

Running time:

118 mins

Rating:

M (contains violence and offensive language)

Screening:

Bridgeway, Lido, Rialto