We live in a skewered world sometimes – girls love bad boys, bitchy characters are always the more popular soap operas, people who are chirpy, particularly in the morning are viewed with cynical disdain. You catch yourself, or at least I do, making some sort of throw away remark, sometimes hurtful, certainly coming from a place of insecurity and realise your view can be negative and hackneyed by those around you. So its through these eyes I viewed Poppy as played by Sally Hawkins in the opening scenes of ‘Happy Go Lucky’. My initial reaction was that the character would grate and maybe with the passing minutes become intolerable. Yet in the closing moments there is a masterful progression to a point where her smile is reduced just so slightly, the infectious humour and positive outlook of the girl isn’t impermeable, yet you have been endeared to her so much, and how her outlook is so natural, you gladly appreciate such a character having screen time. Even moreso, the great test of a movie, there is still a quirk of a smile at the end of my lips as to some of the humour and wit of Poppy and her friends writing about it hours later.

Driving Insructor: ‘Bear with me’

Poppy (looking around): ‘Really, where?’

The story of the movie is slight, and it did occur to me sitting in the cinema at one point that there was in fact no story of note at all until that point. Somehow this flightiness of structure, resembling the central character, ties events to a sense of reality, rather than heavily accentuated plot points distracting from the character and the suggestion made us to reflect on after – can such a happy go lucky demeanour go unchecked? The seeming random tying together of events only stumbles once in a scene where Poppy encounters a man sleeping rough, one which ultimately takes from the clear suggestions of the characters intelligence and sense made elsewhere. The scene is not fatal but could afford to have been relegated to a deleted scene.

Events see Poppy’s life compared with the pastel bland world of her discontentedly settled sister and more contrastingly with her driving instructor. The light hearted vibe of the film has you initially laugh at the instructor and his frustrations and how he interacts with Poppy, however in a final confrontation the tragic reality of how unhappy and angry the man is is revealed. The film casts no verdicts, and never completely affirms Poppy’s attitude as fool proof, but the film is steadfast in creating a feel good factor and still builds a character who is aware of her flaws. Poppy’s response is never world weary, and to see this portrayed effectively and realistically makes this a worthwhile movie experience.

In the same vein as ‘Lars and the Real Girl’ this is the type of movie that sticks with you for all the right reasons. The type of movie that achieves too much to belong to any genre all thats required is the enjoyment of an excellent central performance as well as great comedy and insight.

IMDB Page/ Rotten Tomatoes Page