Poppy (Sally Hawkins) is a crea­ture rarely encoun­tered in movies and even less in real life: some­one gen­uinely happy. She’s not both­ered by oth­ers’ life goals; at 30, she doesn’t have a baby or a boyfriend, own a house, or know how to drive. Relent­lessly chip­per, upbeat, and out­go­ing, she’s best friends with her room­mate (a true rar­ity!) and has already found the career pos­si­bly most suited for her (she’s a gifted, com­pas­sion­ate pri­mary school teacher). Her one van­ity seems to be that she’s proud of her legs.

In con­ver­sa­tion, Poppy always finds a way to agree with almost any­thing any­one says. We first meet her chat­ter­ing away at a sullen book­store clerk. Hav­ing seen Hawkins inter­viewed around the time of her Oscar nom­i­na­tion, it’s all the more appar­ent she’s affect­ing a Cather­ine Tate impres­sion for the movie. Like Tate, Poppy just barely skirts the edge of being annoy­ing to the audi­ence as well, which con­sid­er­ing the reac­tions Poppy pro­vokes from cer­tain other char­ac­ters later in the film, prob­a­bly says more about me than it does her. Poppy’s other major strat­egy in life is to find a new oppor­tu­nity in every set­back. A back injury sends her gig­gling all the way onto an excit­ing adven­ture to a chi­ro­prac­tor. Hav­ing her bicy­cle stolen pro­vides another open­ing for a new expe­ri­ence: dri­ving lessons.

You’re dri­ving me mad! See what I did there? No? Too easy?

Unfor­tu­nately for them both, her new tutor is the unsta­ble, fero­ciously angry Scott (Eddie Marsan). Just a few of Scott’s many neu­roses include racism, homo­pho­bia, reli­gious fer­vor, and con­spir­acy the­o­ries. His most para­noid rant (regard­ing the Wash­ing­ton Mon­u­ment sup­pos­edly being 666 feet tall — appar­ently a rumor stem­ming from the mis­re­ported height of its foun­da­tion) echoes those of the sim­i­larly dam­aged Johnny (David Thewlis) from Mike Leigh’s excel­lent Naked (1993). Is Marsan the most ver­sa­tile actor ever? He’s played every­thing from a sweet-natured man almost par­a­lyzed by shy­ness in Leigh’s Vera Drake, to a tough preacher in 21 Grams, to a ruth­less crim­i­nal who keeps los­ing extrem­i­ties in Han­cock. Yes, Hancock.

Most nar­ra­tives are usu­ally struc­tured around a protagonist’s prob­lem. How do you tell a story about some­one that has no prob­lems? Happy-Go-Lucky defied my expec­ta­tions that the story would go one of three ways:

1. Poppy’s happy-go-lucky atti­tude is a defense mech­a­nism mask­ing an inner sad­ness. Events con­spire that force her to con­front and defeat her inner demons. Every­one cries, then laughs. Happy end­ing. Pic­ture a young Julia Roberts.
2. Poppy con­fronts a huge tragedy that nearly breaks her spirit. She over­comes the obsta­cle. Every­one cries, then laughs. Happy end­ing. Pic­ture Roberto Benigni’s Life is Beautiful.
3. Poppy meets some­one deeply sad and unhappy, her polar oppo­site. She fixes this bro­ken per­son with the power of her indomitable spirit. Every­one cries, then laughs. Happy end­ing. Pic­ture Robin Williams help­ing Jeff Bridges heal in Fisher King (although it may seem like I’m mock­ing it here, Terry Gilliam and Richard LaGravenese’s Fisher King is actu­ally one of my favorite movies).

lat­i­tude, lon­gi­tude, pos­i­tive attitude

While Poppy’s hap­pi­ness is totally gen­uine, she is not deranged. She does not deny that prob­lems and sad­ness exist in the world and in other people’s lives. Nor does she believe that any­one else can sim­ply shrug off their set­backs, depres­sion, or inner demons. The above sce­nario to which Happy-Go-Lucky comes clos­est is the third. Scott and one of Poppy’s sis­ters are as sad and messed up as she is happy. She tries to help, but rec­og­nizes she is unable to fix them. The truly sad real­iza­tion for the audi­ence at the end is that we see that Poppy knows she must keep her dis­tance from her sis­ter and stop try­ing to befriend Scott. Her mere pres­ence in their lives dri­ves them crazy.

Offi­cial movie site: happygoluckythemovie.com

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