Happy-Go-Lucky (2008)

Better Late Then Never

Watch something else. There are very few redeeming qualities to this film.

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

There is definitely an excellent idea hidden in the background of the film. Unfortunately, it's difficult to find it.

What is the point of this film? There's not really any message or significant character arc to be found. Sally Hawkins and Eddie Marsan are engaging - the interaction between ridiculously cheerful and absolutely miserable - but the narrative never takes this in any direction.

I loved reading the poor reviews here, most are funnier than the film's script. I watched the film today and found the lead character very, very annoying. Poppy has a huge problem, she doesn't know when to shut up. In the opening scenes she goes into a book shop and keeps making inane remarks to the sales assistant despite their not engaging with her. I suppose we're to think that he's in the wrong, but we all agreed that she needed to shut up, browse and either buy a book or get out. What does she do? Just keeps prattling on and giggles. Get the point Poppy, the bloke is working. Then she discovers her bike has been stolen and says 'aww I didn't say goodbye'. Smile, giggle. It was then I realised that poor Poppy isn't necessarily happy go lucky, she's just two sandwiches short of a picnic, not the full shilling. And so the film continues with well, nothing happening. We see some great shots of London. One reviewer asks, ooh my gawd are all English streets so narrow? Hilarious. It's a residential area with beautiful victorian treelined streets and this is all they can say. NB: London is an historic city whose suburbs have streets of many widths. Just like any other city in the world.Poppy decides to learn to drive. Unfortunately she can't shut up long enough to listen to instructions. She giggles, gets distracted by squirrels, men, a bird, all whilst sending the poor instructor in a rage. By the third or fouth lesson he's in meltdown. Before the meltdown simple Poppy is shown at school, teaching. Yes despite being a simple soul she's a qualified teacher (god help those poor kids). She intervenes when a bully is discovered in her class, she seeks to discover what is causing the behaviour. Don't worry about the kids being bullied, they're forgotten. The bully is gently questioned and probably sent on a luxury holiday to discourage such behaviour. No more is said about that. Poppy visits her sister's lovely house, which she and her hubby are rightly proud of. Poppy continues driving lessons, has a date with a bloke, laughs, grins, giggles, points at things and..........well that's it. A very simple film portraying a very simple person who can't string a sentence together, makes odd sometimes inappropriate remarks and giggles. Such a strange, boring film. Kept waiting for something interesting to happen. It didn't. Oh nearly forgot the best scenes were when Poppy was trampolining. Just her silly face but no talking. Bliss

-SPOILERS- During one night out, Poppy finds a man sitting in an abandoned building. He appears homeless and is chanting beautifully. She approaches him and they communicate. Everything the man says is gibberish, yet he keeps asking Poppy if she understands. She sincerely says, "Yea, I do." I believe her too. For Poppy also says nothing during the movie. She speaks almost entirely in platitudes, pleasantries and by repeating what the other person says. I kept waiting for it to change and although it does in a few scenes, she never becomes coherent or self-aware.Scott, her driving instructor is her antithesis: angry, gruff and confrontational. He speaks by repeating his driving mantras and occasionally spouting conspiracy theories.Although this isn't a silent film, it could have been. The dialog is hard to tolerate, and I imagine the film would be just as coherent and more enjoyable if watched with the sound off.

Meet Pauline, who thinks her name belongs to a 2 year old and insists on being called "poppy" because it sounds adult. And off we go on a 38 minute ride with a sometimes drunken clearly stupid always teenybopper-behaving stupid-teen-dressing supposedly 30 year old ditsy broad from hell. This creature from your nightmares, just as one example, starts taking driving lessons and quickly proves some people should never be allowed behind a wheel. The dumb little frozen-in-teenybopper-mindset student pays no attention to her driving; she blithers about squirrels, giggles and jokes around about everything and nothing, squeals and takes her hands off the wheel of a moving car just to discomfit the instructor, and refuses to wear appropriate driving shoes instead of her stupid high heeled boots with which she continually messes up. Her whole life is like this, gigglegigglegiggle at everything and nothing, appropriately or not, whether it hurts someone's feelings or not, whether it endangers someone or not. Oddly most reviewers seem to have missed the fact that her squealy and often hurtful stupidity is far from optimism and that others around her whom they classify in negative terms may or may not behave negatively at times but are far more mature, adult, and humane than baby-doll dummygirl. And let's not forget the main character is supposed to be a bona fide schoolteacher of small children --as if any primary school worth its salt would ever hire a wannabe-16-but-still teenie-dressed ditz.Then, abruptly at 38 minutes into the film, Pauline actually acts like an adult for once, interestingly after getting another talking-to from her driving instructor. I wondered at the time if it occurred then because audience testing showed that any more of it would result in 90% of them walking out in sheer disgust.Unfortunately, after that, the film itself takes an equally abrupt turn into a different film altogether, becoming rather darkside fare throwing out all sorts of common human problems, and so making you wonder just what the people involved in making it were trying to do. The main character, by the way, continues to have stupid teenybopper moments along with her now sometimes actually adult behavior capped by a facesucking etc session (with some guy she just met, of course) at an hour and a half that seems stuck in merely to prove she actually is over the age of 12. This ridiculous flick winds up with Pauline deciding not to continue taking driving lessons with her instructor after he lets lose a rant brought on principally by the stupid dangerous actions of other drivers and his own students, principally her. Too late, she grows up enough for a moment to apologize for upsetting him -- and even this is touted as her being sad for his lacks rather than for her own stupidity. The whole thing winds around itself into a totally unbelievable mash that probably could have been edited into something quite decent by a discerning filmmaker, but wasn't. After seeing this, it seems clear that nothing else made by the same people is worth even a minute of your time.