Mike Leigh Tagged Articles at Cinematical

I have a theory that whether you find Poppy in Happy-Go-Lucky utterly annoying or a joy and an inspiration offers an interesting insight to your personality. I once declared in a fit of hyperbole that anyone who didn't love Happy-Go-Lucky or The Brothers Bloom was not anyone I wanted to associate with. I might have also insinuated such people didn't have a soul. And while those statements were rather hasty, I stand by my theory about Poppy, played by Sally Hawkins Maybe you sympathize with Eddie Marsan's angry and needy driving instructor character and think she should have done more to help him. Maybe you think Poppy is another insipid incarnation of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl. Or maybe you just like structured plots. Me, I was totally happy to trip along with Poppy on her adventures, no matter how nonsensical or ill-advised.

A little positivity has gone a long way for Mike Leigh. Since Happy-Go-Lucky premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival in 2008, it's charmed audiences worldwide, and earned an impressive 94% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. It seemed destined to win it all, or at the very least -- a Best Film nod at this year's British Academy Film Awards (also known as the BAFTAs). Nope! Think again!

The Hollywood Reporter posts that the film will not be in the running for a nomination in the Best Film category this year, nor will Mike Leigh be on the list for Best Director. A long list was sent to voting members, and while flicks like The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, The Wrestler, and The Dark Knight were present, Poppy's happy-go-lucky attitude was not. The small bone that the film will most likely get is a nod in the Best British film category. That's it.

We complain about all the Oscar rules, but man -- it's a lot more annoying when one of the most highly regarded British films this year couldn't even be on the long list for Best Film at a British awards ceremony. I would get all ranty about this, but that behavior is most certainly anti-Poppy. So, I'll just wish the powers that BAFTA be find themselves locked in a car with Scott sometime.

Success Stories:
Happy-Go-Lucky (Miramax)
Religulous (Lionsgate)
Ballast (Alluvial/Required Viewing)

One Brit edged out another, as RockNRolla, Guy Ritchie's zippy yet utterfully forgettable "return to form" Brit crime flick, narrowly claimed the #1 spot among limited releases, according to estimates compiled by Box Office Mojo. To my mind, though, Mike Leigh's much riskier Happy-Go-Lucky ($20,000 per screen at four theaters) is the surprise winner in the independent world, with a strking lead performance by Sally Hawkins as a preternaturally cheerful schoolteacher who sounds as though she could set teeth on edge as easily as she warms hearts. I'm curious but wary. The film will expand wider on Friday; if you've seen it, is it a tonic for difficult times or a passive aggressive form of torture?

Speaking of possibly unpleasant experiences, I'm also surprised by the excellent returns for Larry Charles' Religulous. The doc has earned more than $6.7 million in just two weeks; A. J. Schnack of All these wonderful things points out that it's the first doc since Michael Moore's Sicko "to score back-to-back multi-million dollar weekends." I grew tired of Bill Maher's smirking, self-righteous ridicule years ago, but perhaps I'm in the minority. If you've seen the doc, are you a big fan of Maher? Or is it the subject matter that made it a must-see?

Lance Hammer's Ballast deserves a big hand. Not only did Hammer write and direct a highly-praised drama, he decided to take on distribution duties as well, opening it at a single Manhattan theater the weekend before last. The earnings were not stunning, but very respectable for picture without stars. It expands to Los Angeles, San Francisco, Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Washington, Philadelphia and St. Louis before the end of October, according to indieWIRE. Will you check out Ballast if it opens near you?

(Mike Leigh's "Happy-Go-Lucky" opens in limited release this weekend, and so we're reprinting our Telluride review from this past August.)

By: Kim Voynar

With his latest effort, Happy-Go-Lucky, director Mike Leigh takes a departure from the dark mood evoked by most of his films with a charming little tale about an eternally optimistic school teacher, Poppy (Sally Hawkins, previously seen in smaller roles in Leigh's films Vera Drake and All or Nothing), who breezes through life, always seeing the glass half full. Poppy is one of those people who never seems to get down about anything. She smiles at surly strangers, strikes up conversations with people who'd clearly prefer to be left alone, and puts a positive spin on everything.

When her bike is stolen, Poppy shrugs it off and decides to take driving lessons; her driving instructor, Scott (Eddie Marsan, also a Leigh alum from Vera Drake) is Poppy's polar opposite. Some of the film's best moments are when she's interacting with Scott and we have the dramatic tension of his simmering anger to contrast with Poppy's perkiness. Scott is intensely uptight, seems to hate everyone and everything, and adheres firmly to the belief that if only everyone would follow a strict set of rules (his rules, of course), all would be well. Naturally, the two clash.

Today I leave Toronto to head home to Seattle, leaving James Rocchi behind to see the fest through to its exhausting end. It's been a decent fest overall, not great but good. I saw a several films I enjoyed here, including Burn After Reading, Goodbye Solo, and 35 Rhums, as well as a couple of fun midnight picks with JCVD and Detroit Metal City.

I missed being able to see a lot of films I really wanted to see, due to schedule conflicts and the lack of a cloning machine at our hotel that would allow me to be multiple places at once (or at least, the ability to see far enough into the future to foresee which of two films screening opposite each other will be wretched).

It seems that lots and lots of people who attend this fest (I'm talking normal people, not those of us crazy or masochistic enough to work in any aspect of the film business) want very, very much to attend the big parties, and seem to think if they can't get in, they're missing something fun or perhaps even life-altering. There's always a gaggle of scantily clad girls and hipsters hovering around the entrance of these events, hoping to finagle a way to crash the party.

Cinematical has just received this exclusive poster for Happy-Go-Lucky (click image to enlarge), directed by Mike Leigh (Vera Drake, Secrets & Lies). The film, which premiered in Telluride and is currently screening at the 2008 Toronto International Film Festival, stars Sally Hawkins as an eternally optimistic teacher living and working in North London. Apart from the exclusive clip we debuted on Cinematical earlier in the week, Kim had this to say about the film: "All in all, I quite liked Happy-Go-Lucky; it's certainly one of Leigh's more mainstream-friendly films, and will appeal to moviegoers beyond the dress-all-in-black, gloom-and-doom cinephile crowd, while still retaining enough of the Leigh touch to satisfy most of the purists."

Happy-Go-Lucky will arrive in theaters with a smile on October 10.

In spite of the writer's strike keeping several larger films that otherwise would have been on the Telluride slate out of this year's fest, and the absence of Cannes Palm d'or winner The Class, which many had hoped to see here (that film is opening the upcoming New York Film Festival, and so was unable to play at Telluride), the 35th Telluride Film Festival was a solid success.

The fest scored sneak previews of Danny Boyle's hotly anticipated Slumdog Millionaire, which was very well received by audiences, and gave North American premieres to some films that you'll likely be hearing about come Oscar time, including I've Loved You So Long, Flame and Citron, and Adam Resurrected, and Everlasting Moments.

Happy-Go-Lucky, the newest film by director Mike Leigh, has been getting high praise at the Telluride Film Festival for Sally Hawkins' performance as Poppy, a primary school teacher with an optimistic nature. In this clip (see below), Poppy is taking a driving lesson from Scott (Eddie Marsan), a tightly wound driving instructor who's Poppy's polar opposite. The scenes between Poppy and Scott are some of the best and funniest in the film; this one will give you a little taste of it. Happy-Go-Lucky plays at the Toronto International Film Festival before opening in limited release October 10. You can read our full review of the film from Telluride right here.

With his latest effort, Happy-Go-Lucky, director Mike Leigh takes a departure from the dark mood evoked by most of his films with a charming little tale about an eternally optimistic school teacher, Poppy (Sally Hawkins, previously seen in smaller roles in Leigh's films Vera Drake and All or Nothing), who breezes through life, always seeing the glass half full. Poppy is one of those people who never seems to get down about anything. She smiles at surly strangers, strikes up conversations with people who'd clearly prefer to be left alone, and puts a positive spin on everything.

When her bike is stolen, Poppy shrugs it off and decides to take driving lessons; her driving instructor, Scott (Eddie Marsan, also a Leigh alum from Vera Drake) is Poppy's polar opposite. Some of the film's best moments are when she's interacting with Scott and we have the dramatic tension of his simmering anger to contrast with Poppy's perkiness. Scott is intensely uptight, seems to hate everyone and everything, and adheres firmly to the belief that if only everyone would follow a strict set of rules (his rules, of course), all would be well. Naturally, the two clash.

Movies about ex-convicts and their difficulty assimilating back into society generally begin with the prison release, during which the protagonist typically looks downright miserable. At first thought, I recall the opening of Vincent Gallo's Buffalo '66, which ironically exaggerates the hopelessness of post-incarceration by adding a lack of a public restroom to the list of things the former jailbird is without. But at the beginning of John Crowley's new film, Boy A, the titular young man being turned back into the world is high-browed and smiling from ear to ear. And this change from the expected norm really drew me into the film immediately.

Perhaps the difference is that for most films about ex-cons, the hero doesn't have a very good chance at starting over. For "Boy A," however, there's a literal reinvention taking place. In the first scene, the young man (Andrew Garfield) sits with his caseworker, Terry (Peter Mullan), and discusses the details of his release, which include his receiving a new home, a new job and, most importantly, a new identity -- he chooses the name "Jack." Also, rather symbolically, Terry hands Jack a gift, a pair of sneakers that unintentionally represents the young man's ability to comfortably run away from his former life.