HAPPY-GO-LUCKY Movie review Cast: Sally Hawkins, Eddie Marsan At: Westhampton FYI: Running time: 1:56. Rated R (language)
There is only one thing wrong with "Happy-Go-Lucky," and it is this: the entire first hour.
That the second hour gradually does become compelling comes as a bit of a shock, at least to those who have the fortitude not to storm out of the impossibly boring first half. Chalk the eventual quality of the movie up to veteran filmmaker Mike Leigh, who must have remembered at one point that audiences want to see something happen. Anything.
For far too long, nothing does. Sally Hawkins stars as Poppy, a London primary school teacher who sports an annoyingly friendly personality. We're probably supposed to fall in love with her, but she is just too hateful. She laughs at her own constant, unfunny and often inappropriate jokes, and she strives to cheer up strangers who are in no mood for cheer.
She thinks she's cute, and we do not agree.
Writer-director Leigh (his films include "Secrets & Lies," "Topsy-Turvy" and "Vera Drake") attempts to show us her personality by depicting her in any number of mundane, everyday activities that do nothing to even suggest a narrative. She goes to a bookstore. She has drinks with her friend and sister. She hurts her back and goes to a chiropractor. She teaches her students to pretend to be birds. She has a driving lesson. She has a flamenco dance lesson.
We don't realize it at first, but this flamenco lesson turns out to be the turning point. The teacher's explanation of the origin and meaning of flamenco is actually quite interesting, and then the lesson goes off in a direction that is deliriously unexpected.
It is the first scene in the entire film that is worth watching, but far from the last. The scenes at school become more interesting, too, and by the time she visits her younger sister out of town, the story has become undeniably gripping. The biggest source of our fascination turns out to be the driving instructor, an unexpectedly complex character played with subtlety and care by Eddie Marsan.
The movie is meant to be a tour de force for Hawkins, but it is really Marsan's performance that most bears watching.
Once the film finally gets going, even the scenes that would otherwise play false have their own allure. Seeing a crazed homeless man in a deserted area at night, Poppy naturally heads over to make friends with him. By this time, though, Leigh is firmly in control of his story, and he doesn't shy away from the potential for harm that can come to her, even if it does not occur to her until sometime later.
"Happy-Go-Lucky" is billed as a comedy, which it isn't, exactly, unless you find more than one out of every 20 jokes Poppy makes to be funny. For too long a time, it feels like it is going to be just a pointless character sketch, but it isn't quite that, either. What it turns out to be, in fact, is a real, honest-to-gosh movie.
But in the first half, it is nothing but an ordeal.
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