Happy Go Lucky<\/a><\/em>, is a story of a young schoolteacher, Poppy, whose cheery optimism exasperates everyone around her. Some may find Poppy\u2019s child-like behavior (her jokes and lack of seriousness) tiresome, while other may fall fully in love her joy and happiness. But whatever opinion you form of Poppy, she is a fascinating character to base a film on, especially with Sally Hawkin\u2019s vision and portrayal of her.<\/p>\nLeigh follows Poppy and we observe her interactions with the various people she meets. We see how she deals with a bully in the grade-school class she teaches, her chiropractor, her flat mate, a homeless man, her Flamenco teacher, and her new boyfriend–all of which leaves the audience to decide who is the cause of all the conflict: Poppy or everyone else?<\/p>\n
The main plan plot of the film, however, focuses around her tumultuous conflict with her driving instructor, Scott. Eddie Marsen\u2019s performance as the cold, lonely driving instructor is brilliant. He is the perfect contrast to her personality. It is most interesting to watch their weekly driving sessions.<\/p>\n
Leigh directs honest performances in Happy Go Lucky<\/em> from the entire cast. It\u2019s the strongest part of the film. Although the plot is unclear and lacks motivation, the film greatly balances comical elements with the more serious, powerful ones. The film\u2019s optimism and warmth can make you laugh and feel as happy and alive as its main character.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Reviewed by Kevin Tran. Viewed the Riviera Theater, Santa Barbara, CA (Cinema Society). The character study is an interesting genre of film. It lets us observe the protagonist in various situations and interactions with other characters. Good character studies (if you look at older films like Citizen Kane or Wild Strawberries or more contemporary films […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-622","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cinema-society","category-films"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/622","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=622"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/622\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=622"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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The character study is an interesting genre of film. It lets us observe the protagonist in various situations and interactions with other characters. Good character studies (if you look at older films like Citizen Kane<\/em> or Wild Strawberries<\/em> or more contemporary films like Margot at the Wedding<\/em> or There Will Be Blood<\/em>) make us care about the main character, even when they aren\u2019t likable.<\/p>\n