Mood swing

Mike Leigh triumphs with the
uncharacteristically hopeful Happy-Go-Lucky

ALL SMILES: Sally Hawkins

by MATTHEW HAYS

My sympathies go out to those who don’t connect with the universe of Mike Leigh. It’s a strange place, for sure, and there’s often little comfort in it. But it is consistently surprising, always titillating and defiantly unique, in a medium that often seems stilted and predictable.

Critic Rick Groen once referred to Leigh’s distinctive style as “kitchen-sink surrealism” and he was dead on. Here, Leigh regular Sally Hawkins plays a grade-school teacher who is strangely optimistic, an always happy, perky gal whose demeanour supplies the film’s title. Hawkins is constantly making silly jokes and has an incessant giggle that probably should be annoying, but somehow isn’t. It is to Hawkins’s great credit that she pulls this character off so convincingly and seamlessly. I haven’t witnessed a fictional character this upbeat since Mary Tyler Moore.

Happy-Go-Lucky goes against the grain on several levels. In terms of Leigh’s oeuvre, it presents a significant shift—his last film, Vera Drake, was a desperate portrait of a woman who is persecuted after it is revealed she provides abortions. At the time, Leigh made no secret of the fact that he hoped the release of his pro-choice film would help push American voters to oust Bush from office. Bush, of course, got a second term.

Happy-Go-Lucky seems in tune with what will almost certainly be an Obama presidency: it is a film rife with hope and glory. It’s also odd to see a character so happy while living in the middle of London—for those of you who haven’t visited the city lately, I’ll describe it for you: it’s full of miserable, uncomfortable people who seem like they’d rather be just about anywhere else. (Leigh creates a dour Londoner for Hawkins to clash with, a bitter racist driving instructor.)

Our protagonist’s upbeat mood sets up an intriguing tension within the feature. Leigh is fully aware that much of the audience follows his work carefully, and he’s clearly toying with our expectations. How can a character this happy not end up in dire straits in a Leigh movie? (I’m not telling.) There is so much to take pleasure in in Happy-Go-Lucky, another strange, episodic wonder by the man who is arguably Britain’s greatest filmmaker.

HAPPY-GO-LUCKY OPENS THIS
FRIDAY, OCT. 24