| HAPPY-GO-LUCKY (2008) : M.Leigh : 7/10 : review revised SAT.20.SEP. |
|
|
 People think of these 'eureka' moments, and my feeling is that they tend to be little things: a little realisation, and then a little realisation built on that. Roger Penrose A key link between Jesus and Paul is their shared emphasis on death to sin and self as requisite for life to righteousness and God. For both, the cross functions as Moses' bronze serpent—a most unlikely symbol mediating eternal life to all who gaze on it with trust. The cross, however, does not stand alone in Paul's theology. His gospel is not a call to cruciform masochism. The Pauline cross stands firmly planted in the rich soil of the resurrection. Baker's Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology The "Pauline cross" may stand "firmly planted in the rich soil of the resurrection," but what about Ms Pauline Cross, unprepossessing heroine of Mike Leigh's latest comedy-of-manners? Whereas his previous picture Vera Drake put its protagonist's full and proper name right there in the title (‘VD' an incongruous pair of initials given Mrs Drake's occupation), this time it's tucked away in fleeting line of dialogue - said ‘Pauline Cross' being almost exclusively referred to throughout by her nickname, Poppy. Perhaps the name is purely random - Leigh, from a Jewish background, now describes himself as an atheist. Perhaps it was solely chosen for its initials - in recent years synonymous with the phrase "politically correct." But Poppy, a university-educated, well-travelled, Finsbury Park bohemian from a working-class background, doesn't come across as much of a "political" being at all - even though one imagines that, had this picture been made a couple of decades earlier, the 'perils of Pauline' thus depicted may well have involved a noisy demo outside the South African embassy, a trip to Greenham Common and a spell on a CND march. Instead, as winningly played by Sally Hawkins, Poppy, though at first glance something of a hyperactive irritant, is a colourful, ever-chirpy whirlwind of non-aligned, non-partisan positivity. Her dialogue is a chatter of conventional platitudes and adages - though always with a twist. She does, for instance, utter the classic British anti-misery line, "Cheer up - might never happen!" - but the recipient isn't a person, but instead a particularly crestfallen hydrangea. Inclusively and unobtrusively a small-L liberal, Poppy is a 30-year-old primary-school teacher whose low-key lovelife ("not a sausage!") is pretty much the only hint of cloud in an otherwise sunny sky. We're ostensibly a very long way from the kind of downbeat desperations to be found in Richard Brooks' Looking For Mr Goodbar (1977), in which Diane Keaton's lovelorn 30-year-old schoolteacher Theresa Dunn lost herself amid the bars and clubs of swinging Chicago, romancing Richard Gere's leather-jacketed bit-o'-rough before succumbing to the more volatile attractions of Tom Berenger's morose psychopath. On closer inspection, however, the two stories are more similar than they may initially appear: Poppy, likewise, has a polarised angel/demon 'choice' of prospective paramours. She ends up (in the movie's tenderest, gentlest scene) with lanky, nicey-nicey, Lancastrian-accented social-worker Tim (Samuel Roukin). But the character she spends much, much more of the running-time with is her squat, hyper-tense, volcanically ill-tempered, London-native driving instructor Scott (Eddie Marsan) - via car-cam scenes passingly reminiscent of Abbas Kiarostami's 10. The extravagant personality-clash between Poppy and Scott ("you celebrate chaos!", he exasperatedly fulminates) could, with different handling, ultimately have led to a romantic clinch. As it is, coiled-spring Scott is seemingly smitten with Poppy - against his better instincts - but has no idea how to express or handle such feelings. He ends up more stalker than suitor, and the culmination of their interactions is a violent assault - though this contretemps, played half for laughs, is nowhere near as disturbing as the stunningly bleak climax from Goodbar. Indeed, the contrasts between Scott and Poppy are primarily part of the film's sly analysis of various forms of education: it's no surprise that the teacher-pupil relationship between the duo is ultimately switched around. Poppy, meanwhile, is emphatically the learner when she's taken to a flamenco class led by the imperious, foot-stamping Rosita (Karina Fernandez). "This is my-space!!" the latter roars, explaining how formalised dance has become a statement of defiance for members of her Roma culture - she uses the term "gypsy" herself, ruefully noting that this word is not considered 'politically correct' in mirthless Blair/Brown's Britain. "Where is the passion?!" she exclaims - and the answer is right there in front of her, in the daffy, unlikely form of Poppy Cross. Leigh's most satisfying film for quite some time, Happy-Go-Lucky (a work constructed with old-school professionalism, even if the horns-and-woodwids-heavy score is a tad too bittersweet for comfort) is simultaneously a deft state-of-the-nation diagnosis and a generously sprawling character-study of a woman whose determinedly upbeat nature - and her instinctive preference to see and find the best in others - are her defining traits. And they make her something of a sore-thumb oddball in a 21st-century London that's less a melting-pot of cultures and races, more a zone of anomie, ennui and pessimism as presented here. The decades-long lack of social cohesion has resulted in tragic individual cases - such as the homeless man whose stuttering inarticulacy, terminal scruffiness and threatening demeanour would repel most, but with whom the indefatigable Poppy manages to conduct something approaching a two-way conversation. Poppy's hard-won unconventionality is, as such scenes demonstrate, only a means to an end - and she's nothing if not aware of how unusual her world-view has become. In one of the opening scenes, she briefly inspects - and summarily rejects - a book (by theoretical physicist Roger Penrose) entitled The Road To Reality. "Don' wanna go there!" she jovially snorts, inhabiting a self-contained universe where nothing is hopeless, and no-one is beyond the scope of her tireless sympathy. That line of dialogue is typical of a movie that's never anything other than refreshingly direct and open in laying before us exactly what it's about at every stage - right up to the last scene, in which Poppy and her rather more cynical best-pal/flatmate Zoe (Alexis Zegerman, scene-stealingly droll) directly discuss Happy-Go-Lucky's issues as they row their way across a public pond. "Are you happy - in your life?" / "That's a big question!" / "Isn't it just!!" Poppy et Zoe vont en bateau, if you like - Rivette with a smiley face, its unsinkable heroine a secular saint haphazardly redeeming an age of all-too-easy despair. Neil Young 19/20.Sep.08 -------------------------------------------------------------------- UK copyright-dated 2007 118m (BBFC timing) director : Mike Leigh (Vera Drake, All Or Nothing, Topsy-Turvy, etc) editor : Jim Clark (Virgin Territory, Opal Dream, Vera Drake, etc*) seen 9.Sep.08 Wallsend (Odeon cinema, Silverlink : £3.00 ['Silver Screen'] matinee) * other credits include The Innocents (1961); Charade (1963); The Pumpkin Eater (1964), Darling (1965), The Day of the Locust (1975), Marathon Man (1976); Agatha (1979), Yanks (1979), The Killing Fields (1984), The Mission (1986), Memphis Belle (1990), This Boy's Life (1993), Nell (1994), Copycat (1995), The World Is Not Enough (1999). 
|
| < Prev | Next > |
|---|
