Average Rating: 7.7/10
Reviews Counted: 151
Fresh: 140 | Rotten: 11
Mike Leigh's latest partially-improvised film is a light-hearted comedy with moments that bite, and features a brilliant star turn by Sally Hawkins.
Average Rating: 8/10
Critic Reviews: 34
Fresh: 33 | Rotten: 1
Mike Leigh's latest partially-improvised film is a light-hearted comedy with moments that bite, and features a brilliant star turn by Sally Hawkins.
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Average Rating: 3.4/5
User Ratings: 32,620
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Sally Hawkins and Eddie Marsan star in director Mike Leigh's seriocomedy concerning an eternally optimistic teacher living and working in North London. Thirty-year-old teacher Poppy (Hawkins) always has a smile on her face, and does her best to brighten the days of those around her by making small talk and cracking jokes. For the past ten years, Poppy has lived with her best friend, Zoe (Alexis Zegerman), a fellow teacher whose wry outlook on life serves as the perfect counterbalance to Poppy's
Oct 10, 2008 Wide
Mar 10, 2009
$3.5M
Miramax Films
All Critics (152) | Top Critics (34) | Fresh (147) | Rotten (11) | DVD (13)
Hawkins wears her grin in almost every scene, but she gives us hints that this dizzy 30-year-old is deep, as are the disappointments that might have caused Poppy to don this mask. It's a performance of sustained, childlike wonder and adult wit.
I've never used this cliché in a review before, and God forbid I ever use it again, so pay close attention: Happy-Go-Lucky is the feel-good movie of the year.
Sally Hawkins, in a blinding, Oscar-worthy piece of acting so good you barely see it, plays Poppy, a perpetually upbeat elementary schoolteacher in London.
Leigh pushes the story in a more interesting direction, asking whether people find happiness or simply will it on themselves.
The new Mike Leigh film, Happy-Go-Lucky, is a real pleasure, and besides being Leigh's most buoyantly comic feature it's a marvelous showcase for Sally Hawkins, who has worked twice before with the British writer-director.
Sally Hawkins been in movies before, including Leigh's "Vera Drake" and Woody Allen's "Cassandra's Dream," but this is her star-making role. She was named best actress at Berlin 2008. I will deliberately employ a cliche: She is a joy to behold.
You just want to protect her, from the world, from everything, but really she's much stronger than you are.
If you leave the theater feeling uplifted (and unless your heart is made of cold gray concrete, you will), it wasn't due to manipulation, but a result of the film having honestly earned it.
Leigh's most visually beautiful picture since Topsy-Turvy, Happy-Go-Lucky is all about the clashing and connecting of such emotional biospheres.
An anti-miserablist film. A lark, but one with Mike Leigh's signature well-defined characters.
While Sally Hawkins turns out an award-worthy performance as Poppy, I quickly became bored with her life and all the turmoil surrounding it.
There are three extras on the disc, including an excellent full-length audio commentary by writer/ director Mike Leigh.
Few actors could have pulled off this role successfully, as it requires great energy, charisma and depth to make Poppy credible and so much more than first impressions.
It doesn't matter whether one really 'likes' Poppy, only that they recognize in her the proactive application of joy as a weapon -- as well as something that keeps her in a state of arrested development.
Sally Hawkins is a comic revelation, an impish, endlessly charming sprite...
England's addlepated answer to Amelie!
A character tour-de-force for Sally Hawkins, but also a great vehicle for Eddie Marsan as the driving instructor who turns out to be her nemesis.
England's addlepated answer to Amelie!
A bit lean on the extras (some deleted scenes would have be nice), but Hawkins and Marsen's performances still make this Happy-Go-Lucky DVD worth every penny, don't they?
Fresh, spunky and well acted. Sally Hawkins is enchanting and the rest of the cast is enjoyable.
An unusually cheery movie from veteran British writer-director Mike Leigh; one of the ten best films of 2008
Happy-Go-Lucky is flibbertigibbet cinema. Mike Leigh directed Sally Hawkins in this paean to a peahen. Mike Leigh, let me introduce you to Fran Drescher, Kathy Griffin, and Nancy Grace. They're your kind of women.
Like anyone given over to giggling more than griping, Poppy - and as an indirect result, Happy-Go-Lucky - slowly becomes addictive.
Initially, the new Mike Leigh film, "Happy-Go-Lucky," is so overbearing, it's a turn-off. But b the end of it, you might be calling it "Up with Poppy."
An engaging character study about a woman blessed with a sunny disposition. It is a rare occasion that you see a protagonist who's care-free nature isn't looked down upon. Her naivety a source of contempt. Poppy the protagonist is in many ways the antithesis of a protagonist in a Sam Mendes film. She isn't cynical,
February 13, 2012Super Reviewer
This cheeky comedy about a female teacher who enjoys looking on the bright side of life feels a bit like the British reply to France's Amelie. That mostly goes for the way our main character lives her own life entirely to her own rules and enjoys every minute of it. The way this film follows its protagonist through her
March 11, 2010Super Reviewer
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