 |
|
|
Happy-Go-Lucky movie information
|
| Meet Poppy: She'll change the way you look at life. |  |
|
|
|
Released on:
October 10, 2008 (limited) 
October 17, 2008 (expands) |
|
|
|
Production Companies:
Ingenious Film Partners, Summit Entertainment, Thin Man Films, UK Film Council |
Distributors:
Miramax Films |
|
|
Status: Released |
Cast:
Sally Hawkins, Alexis Zegerman, Andrea Riseborough, Samuel Roukin, Sinead Matthews, Kate O'Flynn, Sarah Niles, Eddie Marsan |
Director: Mike Leigh |
Screenwriter: Mike Leigh |
|
|
|
| About the film:
Poppy is a free spirit: She loves dancing, trampolining and traveling. When her bicycle is stolen while she browses a London bookstore, she doesn't get angry or report the incident to the police. Instead, she takes it in stride and decides to take driving lessons. It's typical of Poppy, whose irrepressibly cheerful disposition and knack for rolling with life's adversities has a profound effect on those around her.
Learning to drive, Poppy gets paired with an angry instructor, Scott, who criticizes everything from her boots to what he calls her celebration of chaos. He tells her his job is to rid his students' of their bad habits. But after several lessons it seems that Poppy, in remaining good-humored through his rants, is teaching him something about his own bad habits, and he gradually develops an attraction to her. Whether she's dealing with a bully in the primary school where she teaches, or chatting to a transient she encounters one night, Poppy seems incapable of seeing anything but goodness in others. And her instincts often prove right: The bully, she learns with the help of a social worker named Tim, is being abused at home, and the transient is a harmless soul with whom Poppy shares a rapport.
This endearing drama from five-time Oscar® nominee Mike Leigh begs the question whether guileless good nature borders on the psychologically unbalanced and irresponsible, or is in fact a mark of profound sanity and good sense. In Poppy's case, it seems to be the latter. In her refusal to let anything dim her enjoyment of living — be it her sister's criticism that she isn't serious enough about life or the obsessive attraction Scott develops for her — she is the very embodiment of the saying, Life is not a dress rehearsal.
Official Selection, Berlinale 2008. |
| | |
| Box Office: Opening weekend: $73,867 (4 theaters) | |
|
|
Your Comments
