Happy-Go-Lucky

-SPOILER-



Happy-Go-Lucky is about a time in the life of Poppy; a bright and happy girl.

The Movie start out with her girlfriends at a disco having the time of her life. She then goes home to her flat (plastered), along side her flat mate, sister and friends. Poppy is a primary school teacher who’s flat mate is also a primary school teacher. Poppy is living a great life; she has great friends, a great home, an amazing job, and a sexy new boyfriend. But Poppy has got a dilemma, she doesn’t know how to drive. So she hires a driving instructor to teach her how to drive for 22 pounds. Poppy drivers name is Scott and he is the complete opposite of Poppy. He is a lonely religious man, who was picked on and teased in school. He has a very pessimistic look on life, that makes Poppy want to brighten up with her flirtatious teasing and comedic one-liners.

While teaching at primary school she comes across a young adolescent who has been beating up on the other boys. She puts her self out there to help this little boy by giving him the attention he needs and also help from a social worker. If you step back and watch the movie as an observer you can see that she tried to help Scott in the same way she helped the little boy. But her actions end up being misunderstood and worst way. There are a couple instances where your afraid for Poppy’s life, because she is trying to please everyone.

My Review-

The feeling I got when I left the theater was whoa I didn’t see that coming, and WOW that was a great story. The director did a great job of sucking you in to the story, and making you feel like you were really there, experiencing all of her joyful moments and skin crawling tension between her and Scott the driving instructor. I will say I absolutely loved her flat mate Zoe played by Alexis Zegerman. I found her monotone voice to be very comedic and entertaining throughout the whole movie. Zoe’s got a great line in the movie where she says “You cant make everyone happy”, which is very true. I think that one line really sums up the story of the movie. Which was beautifully put together by Mike Leigh. He did a great job of showing raw emotions between the driving instructor Scott and Poppy, and the great friendship between her and her flat mate Zoe. After watching the film and discussing it with my family we came up with the conclusion that the movie is not about what makes people happy, but about the emotions that come with the driving lessons. Its like everything leads back to Scott and the Saturday driving lessons. The ending really is surprising. I over all really enjoyed seeing Happy-Go-Lucky and I wouldn’t mind seeing it again.