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HAPPY-GO-LUCKY
2008
Director
Mike Leigh
Starring
Sally Hawkins
Eddie Marsan
Alexis Zegerman
Runtime
118 minutes
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Mike Leigh's HAPPY-GO-LUCKY is an unassuming triumph of open-heartedly complex, humanist filmmaking - a look at a few chapters in the life of Poppy (Sally Hawkins), an unwaveringly cheery North London schoolteacher whose optimism is ever at odds with the world around her. Welcome in the New Year with this piece of small-scale hope as Leigh explores just how hard it is, and how meaningful, for people to retain their essential goodness in spite of the indignities that subsume their lives.
"When we talk about movie masterpieces, what usually come to mind are epic works that wow us with their scale, pictures that spring from grand ambitions and even grander budgets. But it takes more than ambition, and more than money, to make an intimate masterpiece like Mike Leigh's HAPPY-GO-LUCKY, a picture so seemingly light that it might be hours (or even days) before you realize how deep and rich it really is. Made in characteristic Leigh fashion -- instead of following a strict script, the actors develop the characters through improvisational sessions -- HAPPY-GO-LUCKY has no plot to speak of. Whatever story there is develops as a result of our deepening connection with the lead character, an unceasingly optimistic primary-school teacher named Poppy whose cheerfulness isn't a way of hiding from a chaotic, sometimes hostile world but a means of facing it. Leigh sets himself up for failure right there: Who wants to see movies about happy people? Misery, stress and confusion are the stuff of dramatic tension. But Leigh and his actors work mysterious magic in HAPPY-GO-LUCKY. This is a movie about hitting the groove of everyday life and, miraculously, getting music out of it." - Stephanie Zacharek
"When we talk about movie masterpieces, what usually come to mind are epic works that wow us with their scale, pictures that spring from grand ambitions and even grander budgets. But it takes more than ambition, and more than money, to make an intimate masterpiece like Mike Leigh's HAPPY-GO-LUCKY, a picture so seemingly light that it might be hours (or even days) before you realize how deep and rich it really is. Made in characteristic Leigh fashion -- instead of following a strict script, the actors develop the characters through improvisational sessions -- HAPPY-GO-LUCKY has no plot to speak of. Whatever story there is develops as a result of our deepening connection with the lead character, an unceasingly optimistic primary-school teacher named Poppy whose cheerfulness isn't a way of hiding from a chaotic, sometimes hostile world but a means of facing it. Leigh sets himself up for failure right there: Who wants to see movies about happy people? Misery, stress and confusion are the stuff of dramatic tension. But Leigh and his actors work mysterious magic in HAPPY-GO-LUCKY. This is a movie about hitting the groove of everyday life and, miraculously, getting music out of it." - Stephanie Zacharek