September 29, 2008

New York Film Festival 2008

by Ari

Happy-Go-Lucky (Mike Leigh)

Mike Leigh’s Happy-Go-Lucky is the flipside to his brooding 1993 character study Naked. Instead of a volatile, angry persuasively bleak character like Johnny absorbing the depressive, ugly nature of the world and projecting it on everyone he interacts with, you have the light-hearted, cheerful and infectiously enthusiastic Poppy (Sally Hawkins) bringing a little feeling of hope, excitement or catharsis to the people she encounters.

Both films follow a similar structure in the way they cut between a deep, personal relationship between flatmates (Johnny, his girlfriend and her roommate in Naked, Poppy and her best friend/partner and younger sister in Happy-Go-Lucky) and then the aimless wandering of the central character through the various streets, neighborhoods and sometimes desolate, alienated districts in London. Also in both films is the way the character reaches a particular person who does have a profound effect on their lives - in Naked it’s Johnny and the night guard, in Happy-Go-Lucky it’s Poppy and a tragic homeless man.

It’s fascinating how the two films follow similar patterns considering the opposites in tone and theme. The trailers for Happy-Go-Lucky promise light, sweet fluff, the kind of generic and forgettable Hollywood entertainment we suffer far too much these days. But make no mistake, this movie is pure, vintage Mike Leigh through and through, subtly relevant and surprisingly moving.

Poppy is an elementary school teacher who has a young girl’s spirit and energy though she’s just turned 30. It’s not that Poppy is completely ignorant of the way many people suffer in life, and it’s not that she’s completely removed from the reality of the world, but something about her personality is certainly off from the way people, even happy people, operate on a day-to-day basis. She finds humor in the oddest of places, she’s exuberant for just about everything, she’s....well, she’s just in love with the fact that she’s alive.

This quality understandably charms a lot of people in her life and rightly frustrates a few of them too. The relationship she was with her lonely, angry, bitter driving instructor, Scott (Eddie Marsan)is a perfect example of how her attitude can hurt just as much as it can heal. Poppy’s friendship with her roommate is an example of what you envy about her personality, the type of fun, caring and intimacy you experience from years of togetherness. It’s not that Poppy is unaware of her unique stance on life, her spontaneous nature is a reaction to her self-awareness.

In the film’s most mysterious and profound sequence, Poppy has an awkward conversation with a homeless man without really talking about anything specific at all. That indescribable feeling of wanting and needing a profound sense of awakening or affirmation is what they understand about each other, as displaced as she is or possibly insane as he appears. As Leigh stated in the Q & A following the film, there’s something enigmatic about the moment between the two, something you understand from the feeling of it instead of the dialogue. It’s one of the classic, poignant sequences of his career.

Sally Hawkins is remarkable as Poppy, the most convincing and brilliant female lead I’ve seen since Penelope Cruz in Volver. Balancing the bright, lively moods of Poppy is no simple task, but Hawkins manages to make the character both real and unreal - the exact characteristics that make Happy-Go-Lucky such a memorable and rewarding experience.