Happy-Go-Lucky with Sally Hawkins

Contemporary Comedy by Academy Award Nominated Director Mike Leigh

Nov 14, 2008

Mike Leigh's Happy-Go-Lucky won Sally Hawkins a Golden Bear for Best Actress at the Berlin Film Festival 2008. Leigh calls his latest film a "reflection on life"

With no plot to speak of Happy-Go-Lucky follows the every-day-experience of a 30-year-old primary school teacher in North London. Poppy, short for Pauline, has a lot to be happy about. She shares a nice flat with her best friend Zoe (Alexis Zegerman), she has a job she loves, supportive colleagues and a love life if she wants one. When her bike gets stolen, she signs up for driving lessons and meets her nemesis in the irritable, impatient and angry driving instructor Scott, brilliantly played by Eddy Marson. Scott won't be cheered up by Poppy's positive attitude, instead he seems to be vexed and angered by her.

Intelligent, Funny and Versatile Sally Hawkins

Dressed in bright bluish skirts over fishnet stockings Poppy, played by Sally Hawkins, flits through her days like a butterfly. She jumps trampoline and does not shy away from dressing up as a chicken to motivate her third grade students. Whether dancing at an ear-piercingly loud club with her giggly girlfriends, cheering up a grumpy bookstore owner or in an encounter with an erratic, visibly disturbed homeless person, she looks at the bright side of things. If her character were one-dimensional, she would be more than annoying. But Sally Hawkins carries the movie in an excellent performance. We sense that her cheerfulness isn't a way of hiding from a chaotic, sad and often hostile world, but her attitude to embrace it.

Character Study

There are layers to Happy-Go-Lucky and the movie is definitely more than a light-hearted comedy. It is a journey, where the audience gets to watch, know, and even love the central character. There is intelligence and sensibility underneath Poppy's obvious silliness. Little by little the film pieces together a portrait of the character and our connection with her deepens. Director Mike Leigh does not follow a strict script, but works with the actors to develop the characters through improvisational sessions. He says, " it is far more productive for the writing and the work of the actors to be part of a whole creative investigation that leads to the material." (indieWIRE Interview, 10/2008)

Happy-Go-Lucky is Sally Hawkins third collaboration with Mike Leigh after Samantha in All Or Nothing and Susan in Vera Drake. Her performance as Anne Elliott in the recent ITV production of Jane Austen's Persuasion won the Golden Nymph Award for Best Actress at the Monte Carlo Television Festival in 2007.

Five-time Oscar Nominee Mike Leigh

Mike Leigh is among the world's highly awarded film directors. For Secrets and Lies he won the top prize at Cannes, Vera Drake received the Venice Film Festival's Golden Lion. He is an accomplished storyteller, whose films have been called bleak, but also humorous. His characters are worlds removed from heroes in the Hollywood sense, they are regular people and do their best to get by.

In a new book-length interview with journalist Amy Raphael, the acclaimed director reflects on his life and his unique work method. "Mike Leigh on Mike Leigh (Directors on Directors)" was published in the U.S. in October 2008, at the same time Happy-Go Lucky was released in theaters.

Love It or Hate It

Reviewers on various blog sites either love the movie or struggle with it. A film featuring a tremendously positive character with a sunny outlook on life at a moment when the American markets are reeling and financial angst is soaring might be a bit subversive, or simply lucky.

The copyright of the article Happy-Go-Lucky with Sally Hawkins in British Films is owned by Christine Welter. Permission to republish Happy-Go-Lucky with Sally Hawkins in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.