Poppy is a blithe spirit, weightless as the spring breeze while zipping around the leafier wards of London on her bike, smiling and waving at passersby. Poppy (Sally Hawkins) is the focus of the self-explanatory Happy-Go-Lucky, a comedy (of sorts) from a British writer-director better known for drab and dreary dramas about claustrophobic life at the rim of poverty, Mike Leigh.
Poppy might only laugh if she tripped and fell across that rim. An irrepressible 30-ish woman, she is the bubbly sort whose hellos to strangers and googly effusiveness begin to transgress the normal social boundaries of contemporary urban life. Ideally employed as a grade school teacher, Poppy demonstrates the migratory habits of birds by dressing her pupils in paper bag avian masks and encouraging them to flap their wings. She has a tight circle of loyal friends and yet one gets the impression that most people Poppy encounters find her annoying. She spreads her largely unreflective happiness like an unintended itching powder of irritation.
Leigh has created a fascinating character that he doesn't always well employ, allowing her to languish through many sagging scenes of uncompelling everyday existence. It's unclear whether this woman, sashaying around in her neo-bohemian garb, is meant as a reproach to the grumpy, unfeeling society around her or if Leigh wonders if she's a bit nuts-or at least in serious denial.
The only dramatic tensions-and ultimately the most interesting scenes-are the exchanges between Poppy and her irritable driving instructor (Eddie Marsan). He's a tightly wound man of her generation, deeply unhappy with his own life and the general drift of the world. Despite his unreasonable paranoia and prejudice, Leigh gives him a few sharp observations for which Poppy has no answer. Is he half right in putting down Poppy's happy display to self-absorption, an insidious need to be adored by all as the sun queen at the center of the cosmos?
