MOVIES: NYFF gets 'Happy Go-Lucky'

Like the an unexpected tropical breeze blowing in off of the Thames, British director Mike Leigh’s newest film, Happy Go-Lucky goosed the audiences at the first weekend of New York Film Festival with it’s infectious lightness. Leigh and his star, Sally Hawkins (who won the best actress prize at the Berlin Film Festival) were both in attendance after a screening last week to accept the press’s rapturous praise with grace. It’s not surprising Happy Go-Lucky has been so well-liked since the main character Poppy Cross’s modus operandi is “being a good person” according to Leigh, even if it puts her in direct conflict with everyone else she meets from her angry driving instructor to a taciturn bookseller. “But it’s not enough to talk about her as happy. She has a great depth and profundity.”

To further enhance the sunny disposition Poppy, a singleton primary school teacher living in London, radiates throughout Happy Go-Lucky, Leigh worked with his long-time cinematographer Dick Pope to develop a whole new visual aesthetic for the film. Using a brand new film stock produced by Fuji called Vivid and shooting for the first time in cinemascope, Leigh told our audience he needed each frame “to burst with color and light.” And boy oh boy, does this joy-inducing movie shine. You can't help but leave the theater with a grin on your face.

(The Museum of the Moving Image is bringing Mike Leigh to present a screening of Happy Go-Lucky at the Scandinavia House on Sunday, Oct. 19 at 5 pm.)

— Karen Wilson

Photo Credit: Simon Mein/ Courtesy of Miramax Films / Film Society of Lincoln Center