Happy-Go-Lucky, directed by Mike Leigh

In these days of controversial warfare and economic downturn, who could possibly manage to be happy? This is the question posed over and over again in Mike Leigh’s Happy-Go-Lucky. The story is very simple. A young teacher named Poppy struggles to maintain her upbeat demeanor in the face of resentment, anger, and abuse. That may sound uninteresting to some, but Leigh approaches it as the central conflict of our time. And I think he just may be right.

I live in Los Angeles, where bitter jealousies and growing frustrations are accepted as necessarily evils, like smog or earthquakes. Almost everybody out here wishes they were somewhere else. People in the Valley wish they lived in Hollywood, people in Hollywood wish they lived in Beverly Hills, extras wish they were actors, actors wish they were directors, and so on. Few people are content with where they are right now.
And that’s just the external stuff. Once one factors in onions about politics, philosophy, and religion, the frustrations triple. On any given day, one can listen in on virtually any conversation and hear how the government has become Fascist, the school system produces idiots, and that California is full of homophobic bigots. The passion and rage that these topics inspire is almost explosive.

All in all, there’s a lot of misery in the City of Angels.

And, in Happy-Go-Lucky, it would appear that London is not much better. Throughout the film, Poppy encounters a clerk who can barely mask his contempt for his job, a driving instructor whose anger at the world cannot be contained, and a sister who can never be satisfied. Everywhere she looks, Poppy is faced with unhappiness. Her response is to simply try to cheer the person up. Her method is to show genuine, enthusiastic interest in whomever she’s speaking to.

The damnedest thing: this doesn’t usually work. If anything, Poppy is met with frustration. Nobody can figure her out. How can this woman be so happy when so much is going wrong? Is she simply unaware of the world around her? Has nothing bad ever happened to her?

It is the inability to answer these questions that leads so many other characters to try to change Poppy. Her sister urges her to get married and have kids before she gets too old. Her driving instructor throws in lessons on the unfairness of life free of charge.

Even her kindred-spirit roommate thinks she should stop being so nice.

We come to find out that Poppy lives in the same world as the rest of us. She can feel hate and anger and awkwardness. The difference is that she chooses not to dwell on these things. Why add to the bitter discord when one can try to see the positive and perhaps even make other people’s lives a bit better?

Based on everything I had heard about this film, I expected Poppy to be an over-the-top character, bouncing around without a care in the world. What we are presented with, instead, is a real person with real concerns who has chosen happiness, regardless of the circumstances. There are several scenes in which we see Poppy make the conscious decision not to focus on the negative. It is in these moments, as we watch the brief conflict in Poppy’s mind, that we find out all we need to know about this fascinating woman.

It’s a testament to Leigh’s writing and Sally Hawkins’ performance that we are not annoyed by Poppy. Her enthusiasm is foreign to us. We’re more like the apoplectic driving instructor or the apathetic clerk or the resentful sister. But, rather than cross our arms and roll our eyes at her boundless energy, we’re invited to join in the fun and see things from Poppy’s point of view.

And, maybe- just maybe- some of it will rub off on us.