Is there an adjective that means more charming than charming? The complete overload of charm that is more endearing than cute and doesn’t slide slowly into sleazy? Because that is the one word that is needed for this film which I stumbled into seeing last night.
The ‘quirky indie character film’ genre, to which this belongs, is without fail a hit or miss enterprise. One cute anachronism too many and they become an exhausting show. Appropriate a little too heavily and you achieve cookie cut obnoxious-for-the-sake-of-it posers who are largely joyless to watch. Happy-Go-Luckily, manages to get the balance right, chiefly because of stellar casting. Tripping alongside the appropriately naïve Poppy’s (Sally Hawkins) encounters with off the wall adults, the film is definitely a reaffirmation of the fact that most people are completely nuts in their own little ways (the recurring plot in my own life melodrama). Her sister, best friend, flamenco teacher and driving instructor, were an engaging and faultless supporting cast. The acting gave the sense of the unscripted as there was a cacophony of dialogue that overflowed in every frame. It was a busyness that carried over into the style in a way that made the characters intense, or full, rather than being a potentially distracting feature.
I appreciated that they didn’t shy away from queering the plot a little and the cinematography was successfully playful – its focus on the contemplation of unexpected objects and faces gave great colour to the film. I was also quite enamored with costuming that balanced the colloquial and the creative. Everyone had an identifiable style, but did so without rehashing a current mode of alt-style, whatever that may be, that so often can date a film. The happy costuming of the lead is bright but unashamedly daggy and the particularly ‘chav’ style of Poppy’s sister never failed to have me chuckling, all of which added great personality to the script.
What was possibly the most interesting part of the film was the challenge it presented: how do people respond to someone who is truly happy? The response, by its nature, says a lot about the characters, and perhaps our own, relationship to happiness. There are a few moments in the film, Poppy’s encounter with a homeless man and a physiotherapist, which when coupled with her innocent attitude, really made me quite tense. I was waiting for the moment when everything was going to go wrong, the moment when optimism and friendliness wasn’t enough to offset the dangers of chance or the attitudes of others. Like the eventual trajectory of her relationship with her driving instructor, it was just a matter of waiting for the world to propel a come-down. This is a tension that is central to the plot, the threat that the elusive nature of happiness can present to those without; but the sense of waiting for trouble was aspect that was very personally amplified.
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