As of this posting, I haven’t yet had a chance to see Happy-Go-Lucky, the latest release by director Mike Leigh...but even so, just based on pedigree alone, the film is already a strong contender for my Best of 2008 list.
Leigh, an admirably egalitarian humanist and keenly observant class warrior from way back, won an Oscar nomination for the abortion bummer, Vera Drake, yet despite his reputation as a director of grim downers, even his bleakest films are less depressing than most standard “feel-good” Hollywood drek thanks to his stubborn, old-school devotion to art over commerce and relatable reality versus artificial sweetener.
His latest, currently winning rapturous reviews (and a 95% favorable tomato-meter critical response at RottenTomatoes.com) features Sally Hawkins in what sounds like a breakthrough performance as Poppy, a cockeyed optimist whose determined cheeriness would be downright unbearable if not for the hardscrabble verisimilitude of Leigh’s cinematic landscapes. Like the mother in Life Is Sweet, Poppy is no bubblehead, but rather a tenacious survivor determined to wring every drop of joy from an often joyless world rather than succumbing to easy cynicism and despair.
Click here for an exclusive Screengrab preview of the film, and keep your chin up, mate!
Related Stories:
Trailer Review: Happy-Go-Lucky
Location, Location, Location: Mike Leigh’s London