Happy Go Lucky

This was meant to be a blog about politics but all I seem to do is talk about the films I watch. Happy Go Lucky is in many ways classic Mike Leigh. Even by his standards it's weak on narrative thrust but it's a classic look at London lives with a mixture of affection and a strangely unuanced idea of character. Secret and Lives is a decent film but nowhere near as good as it thinks it is and Topsy Turvy is great fun and for my money his best work. Most of the other Leigh films I've seen seem to have this strange lack of interest everyone but the main character. And so it is here.

Sally Hawkins is great as Poppy, really great. It is very hard to play a cheery protagonist. It's far more traditional for the lead to be quietly likeable and their friends to be zany and off the wall. She has to get you through being every so slightly repelled by her excessively cheery demeanour and out the other side where you like and respect her. And she does this mostly through having a face that shows real, mature care in it. Whether it's dealing with kids who are struggling or with Eddie Marsan as a rage-filled driving instructor, she can demonstrate that behind that overgrown kid persona is a person who's far more emotionally adept then those around here and has a genuine warmth and drive to help people. And help people in an effective way based, to sound utterly wanky, on eudaimonia (Aristotle's term meaning roughly 'the good life') rather than on an unemotional utilitarian basis. The idea that you help more by being a positive asset to everyone you eat then if you give away lots of money to charity.

That last point may be a little overstating it but I've listened to Mike Leigh talk about the film and I'm in no doubt that he is interested in the emotional maturity of optimism. Which fits in well with this post on Never Trust a Hippy. There is a strong pervading sense that optimism and idealism is some student concept which you should grow out of. But the truth is I don't think many people become cynical because they've seen more of the world it's got to them. I think most of the satirists and moaning columnists were always like that. It's why ex-politicians are usually better reads because they're more naturally engaged with attempting to put forward solutions.

This is in danger of becoming a moan about moaning. But I do think there is something endemic in the media that puts those who sit and bitch above those who try and help. And more fundamentally which encourages a viewpoint where you should feel sorry for yourself despite the fact that the 21st century in Britain is historically up there with the greatest places to live in history. End of rant.

So I reccomend Happy Go Lucky not because it's brilliant. She is and Eddie Marsan is brilliant as ever but the rest of the cast are stunningly one dimensional and I can't quite figure out if it's the script or the actor's fault. Actually it's a Mike Leigh film so the two are very much intertwined. But because I think it is an unsubtle but right polemic on the virtues of positivity and not succumbing to self-pity. It's a liberal modern version of the stiff upper lip really.