REVIEW | Taking No Prisoners: Mike Leigh’s “Happy-Go-Lucky”

Disregarding dramatic convention, Leigh refuses to show her as broken or incomplete, in need of a course correction or good man. Casually, quietly feminist, “Happy-Go-Lucky” is the Anglo working-class girl’s answer to “Sex and the City.” In an early sequence, Poppy and her thirtysomething friends bop with pints aloft to Pulp‘s “Common People” in the club, then stumble home for a nightcap. They slump on the sofa, unstuff their bras and collegially take the piss, blowing off steam on a Friday night with nary a mention of men. Sure, they’d like to meet “fit” guys, but they’re not about to waste the weekend waiting around for them. They crash, sleep late, then make one another toast and veg in bed. Poppy and her roommate Zoe (sensitive foil Alexis Zegerman), also a teacher, do a little prep work for Monday (making bird masks out of paper bags, chasing each other around the room), then hit the pub again for one more round. During an unfortunate trip to the suburbs, Poppy’s nightmare of a pregnant sister accuses her of loneliness and disaffection. “I love my life,” she says, and not only do we believe it, we’ve seen that it’s true.

Poppy’s ambiguous encounters with an unstable driving instructor (Eddie Marsan) culminate in door-slamming discord, but the relationship is illustrative of the limits and dangers of Poppy’s (never naive, but nevertheless willful) generosity while never developing into a central conflict. The film’s greatest struggle might be with its audience. At various points in “Happy-Go-Lucky” we’re invited to see Poppy as simply too much: a bookseller’s silence invites a monologue, a handsome doctor ignores machine-gunned come-ons, and even the high-strung driving instructor has a right to some bewilderment. Leigh presented a similar challenge in “Naked,” with David Thewlis’s Johnny as the misanthropic negative to Poppy’s optimist. In our era of gloomy superheroes and seductive serial killers, Poppy’s now the harder sell.

Stealthy-smart, PJ Harvey-sexy, supernaturally expressive, and several disarming steps ahead of everyone else, Hawkins’s full-bodied singularity calls to mind none other than the queen of mesmerizing overdrive, Gena Rowlands. Shot from above, she’s flat on her back and stripped to a goofy ensemble of pink bra, orange panties, and flowery black tights; at the chiropractor’s touch she winces and giggles, then gently jokes to put him at ease. She’s daft and vulnerable and often damn near impossible to comprehend, but she’s a marvel. And whether or not she’s licensed, she’s always driving.

[Eric Hynes is a Reverse Shot staff writer.]