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Dom Robinson reviews
Momentum Pictures Home Entertainment 
- Cert:
- Cat.no: MP834D
- Running time: 114 minutes
- Year: 2008
- Pressing: 2008
- Region(s): 2, PAL
- Chapters: 12 plus extras
- Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1
- Languages: English
- Subtitles: English for the hearing impaired
- Widescreen: 2.35:1
- 16:9-Enhanced: Yes
- Macrovision: Yes
- Disc Format: DVD 9
- Price: £19.99
- Extras: Trailer, Featurettes: Behing The Wheel, Mike Leigh’s Characters
- Vote and comment on this film:
Director:
- Mike Leigh
(All or Nothing, Career Girls, Happy-Go-Lucky, High Hopes, Life is Sweet, Meantime, Naked, Secrets & Lies, Topsy-Turvy, Vera Drake, TV: BBC2 Playhouse, Play for Today)
Producer:
- Simon Channing-Williams
Screenplay:
- Mike Leigh
Music:
- Gary Yershon
Cast :
- Poppy: Sally Hawkins
Scott: Eddie Marsan
Zoe: Alexis Zegerman
Heather: Sylvestra Le Touzel
Dawn: Andrea Riseborough
Alice: Sinead Matthews
Tim: Samuel Roukin
Suzy: Kate O’Flynn
Tash: Sarah Niles
Bookseller: Elliot Cowan
Tramp: Stanley Townsend
Flamenco – Spanish Dance Teacher: Karina Fernandez
Flamenco Student: Rebekah Staton
Helen: Caroline Martin
Jamie: Oliver Maltman
Ezra: Nonso Anozie
Happy-Go-Lucky is so-called because it reflects the bright and sunny demeanour of its lead character, Poppy, played by Sally Hawkins, right, who’s made a great name for herself in various film, TV, theatre and radio productions over the last 10 years, although she’s best known for me as the voice of the wonderful Ping, the receptionist for Felix Jeffrey & Associates in Radio 4’s Ed Reardon’s Week, balancing perfectly her mix of cheeky, bossy and just a bit mental.
Poppy is 30 years old, doesn’t mind that she hasn’t found the man of her dreams yet, works as a primary school teacher in Camden and puts a happy face on everything, even down to a moment early on when she has her bike stolen. The solution? She sees it as a cue to finally getting round to learning to drive, and rather meets her match in her firebrand of an instructor in Scott (Eddie Marsan – again, someone who’s had his fair share of TV and film roles over the years, even if the name isn’t instantly recognisable, but I remember him mostly from his appearance as Stoat in an episode of the BBC2 comedy, Game On).
Poppy has a serious side when required, but she tries to see the lighter side of life most of the time, which shows up when she takes a spur-of-the-moment offer from headmistress Heather (Sylvestra Le Touzel) to go flamenco dancing. Most of the rest of the time she spends with flatmate and co-worker Zoe (Alexis Zegerman, bottom pic with Poppy), often in the pub with Tash (Sarah Niles) or on nights out with friends such as Dawn (Andrea Riseborough, who played Margaret Thatcher in a recent BBC4 drama) and Alice (Sinead Matthews, aka Jenny from BBC3’s Ideal), although sadly after seeing the names of the latter two in the cast list it was disappointing that they weren’t in it any further than the first few scenes.
I’m not particularly a fan of any description of Mike Leigh’s films as opposed to being the kind of person who must see every single one of them. In fact, I can only remember seeing Life is Sweet and I didn’t go a bundle on that, despite all the media’s plaudits. However, I can see that he gets the best out of his actors by having them engage in semi-improvised conversations, so he’ll give them the basic topics to get through and let things go from there. This technique has also worked brilliantly of late in the BBC’s The Thick Of It.
Sally Hawkins is fantastic as the slightly-annoying Poppy, who also brings families into the plot with one sister, Suzy (Kate O’Flynn), appearing early on and then later she pays a visit to her other sister, Helen (Caroline Martin), who’s pregnant, and her husband Jamie (Oliver Maltman), while Eddie Marsan really excels in his supporting role as Scott (right, with Poppy), whose topics of conversation extended to little more than his instructor mantra of “En-ra-hah” in relation to the mirrors used while driving and also his conspiracy theories about the world such as the education system producing left-brain prisoners, and that as the Washington Monument is 555ft above the ground and 111ft below, that adds up to 666 – the number of the devil.
In fact, all of the people here are believable characters and Leigh ensures that the film doesn’t overdo anything in that respect. However, if I had a complaint it would be that bits of the film here and there do go on too long and it could do with cutting down by about 15 minutes to make it tighter.
The film is presented in 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen and looks excellent throughout with no problems. Poppy’s outlook on life is reflected in the bright sunny days which dominate most of the outdoor scenes. The Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack conveys dialogue and music perfectly but with no surprises, but then this isn’t an action film.
There aren’t a great deal of extras on this disc. We have a Theatrical Trailer (1:52), presented in the original 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen and Dolby Surround sound, but for some reason the dialogue comes only out of the right-hand front speaker, with the music numbers coming out of the other – this isn’t the case for the film itself, thankfully.
Then comes two featurettes – Behing The Wheel (4:26), which is a look at the driving scenes between Poppy and Scott, showing how the car was set up for multiple cameras and for driving on the roads while going about the shoot. And then Mike Leigh’s Characters (27:21), which combines the actors talking about their roles with the director’s take on their performances and how the characters relate to the actors. In one of these, Eddie talks about how Scott found his look in the late ’80s and just stuck with it, and I can see where he’s coming from.
However, the BBFC site also lists a 36-minute “Conversation with Mike Leigh” as being rated in relation to this film, but it’s a supplemental that’s not to be found on this disc.
The film contains a mere 12 chapters, which isn’t good for a 2-hour film as I always work on a rule of thumb of one every five minutes as a reasonable figure. Subtitles are available in English and the main menu features clips from the film as well as being scored with a looped piece of music from the film.
Before the menu even appears, though, we see trailers for Caramel, The Wave and Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day, but, Momentum, as I’ve said before, we are long past the age of the rental video where this practice was commonplace. You now have somewhere these should go: the extras menu. Please don’t make them stick out like this.
PICTURE QUALITY
SOUND QUALITY
EXTRAS
OVERALL 
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.