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Happy-Go-Lucky
R1 - America - Buena Vista Home Entertainment Review written by and copyright: Adam Palcher (16th June 2009). |
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The Film
 I’ve truly never met a person like Poppy; the main character in Mike Leigh’s "Happy-Go-Lucky". Poppy is played by Sally Hawkins and is the most over joyous, eccentric, and optimistic person I’ve ever seen on screen. She is a person that truly loves life and has a sense of fun and reality that most humans don’t encounter. For all of these things that Poppy endears I am wavering on the fence with this film, and mostly because of her. I, like many others, have moments of annoyance in this film that is rarely reached by other movies. Poppy’s sense of humor and cackling “dumb girl” presences overtakes this film to a point that it seems unrealistic, but Leigh’s character development and storytelling brings you back to reality in a way that only he can. Putting Poppy’s sense of freewill into real situations, and even humbling herself in a few scenes, it shows that Leigh knows what he wants and isn’t going to layout the story as predicted. It’s not that I don’t believe Poppy is a real person, or could be, I am just torn by the realism that nobody can be this happy and optimistic all of the time, and this is coming from a pretty optimistic person. The supporting cast here is really fun, but the stand out performance for me is the underrated and wonderful Eddie Marsan who plays Poppy’s driving instructor in the film. Playing the complete opposite from Poppy with his reserved, strict, and caged emotions Marsan brings the “light” weight of the movie back to reality and proving to Poppy that everything isn’t puppy dogs, rainbows and candy. Some other themes that Leigh brings forward in "Happy-Go-Lucky" is teaching and how different people approach learning and ultimately what teaching educates about oneself. Along with teaching I got the theme for anger and how we deal with anger whether it is screaming in its face or avoiding it all together. Though the main character is the bubbliest person on the planet the film still dissects life in a brave way by questioning each character's motives and forces them to deal with the consequences of the way they live their lives. This film deserves much credit for what it’s trying to say and the themes it explores in an effective way. I still can’t say if I recommend this movie, but I am glad I saw it. I think ultimately it comes down to if you can handle Sally Hawkins' character of Poppy, or not. Even if you think you can’t, keep watching because you could be surprised.
Video
Presented in Widescreen 2:35:1 aspect ratio enhanced for 16x9 televisions. The video transfer is generally bright and bubbly, just like the main character. There is nothing too much to speak of that stands out in this standard definition transfer. The cinematography does shine and pop in a few scenes, but as far as a transfer I would say it is good to better.
Audio
Everything sounds average, along with the video. Mostly front end presented in English Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound, with a mainly dialogue driven story and characters the mix sounds even and presentable. Subtitles are available in English and Spanish.
Extras
Buena Vista has released this film with an audio commentary, two featurettes and some bonus trailers. Below is a closer look. Audio commentary option with the director Mike Leigh, this is a very interesting and intense discussion about the film. Mainly because Leigh is a very intense guy and truly cares about the medium and the story. Great insight on the character of Poppy and his choices of the film. A fun extra for lovers of the film or even questioners of why Leigh chose Poppy as the main character. "Behind The Wheel Of Happy-Go-Lucky" is a 4 minute 26 second featurette that goes behind-the-scenes of "Happy-Go-Lucky" and interviews with the cast and crew and mainly delving into the relationship between Poppy and Scott. Also going into the aspects of the car scenes. "Happy-In-Character" is a 27 minute 13 second featurette which is an in-depth view of character of Poppy. Sally Hawkins is especially great in the interviews replenishing my faith that Leigh does know what he wanted out of Poppy the whole film. Describing her character in perfect detail and explaining her sense of humor and motivations during the film is truly quite interesting since she was the part of the film that bothered me the most. This is mainly just interviews with Hawkins, Leigh and Marsan, a really great and insightful extra. Bonus trailers are for: - "TRUTH" an anti-smoking promo that runs for 31 seconds. - "Miramax" promo for all of best and brightest award winning movies which runs for 2 minutes 36 seconds. - "Doubt" which runs for 2 minutes. - "Desperate Housewives: Season Four" promo which runs for 36 seconds. - "The Boy In The Striped Pajamas" which runs for 2 minutes 16 seconds. - "Samantha Who?: Season One" which runs for 1 minute 49 seconds.
Overall
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