Mike Leigh is tickled that critics have hailed Happy-Go- Lucky, an invigorating tribute to a beautiful dreamer who happens to teach school, as if it were a change of pace. He chuckles when he says, "It is and it isn't. Each of my films has its dark and light side. I like to serve up a different dish every time I invite you around to supper."
His method is always to cook up characters with actors who are complete partners in developing the psychology, conflict and narrative of a piece. This m.o. has earned him five Oscar nominations and numerous international awards for movies such as Secrets and Lies .
Happy-Go-Lucky began with his desire to explore the "great vitality" of actress Sally Hawkins, who had already performed splendidly for him in Vera Drake and All or Nothing. It evolved into the story of a woman whose primal optimism gets tested by a morose driving instructor. Leigh can't pinpoint when Hawkins' character, Poppy, became a schoolteacher. He does say, "Now it seems inevitable, because teaching kids is an act of optimism by definition."
Leigh fans have seen this film as the flip side of his nightmarish Naked (1993) which starred David Thewliss as a nihilist named Johnny. That antihero's typical statement was, "the world is overcrowded, isn't it? It do need a little pruning." In Happy-Go-Lucky, when Poppy's roommate Zoe says, "You can't make everyone happy," Poppy replies, "There's no harm in trying that Zoe, is there?"
The fascination for Leigh is what connects these seemingly antithetical characters. "Poppy and Johnny have a good deal in common. Both reject and eschew the materialistic world. And neither is cynical. Johnny is a frustrated, disappointed and embittered idealist. Poppy is no such thing. She confronts difficulties and setbacks and gets on with life."
Leigh wanted to put her in a wide-screen picture that would "burst with color." Good karma begat good karma. His genius cinematographer, Dick Pope, found that Fuji had come out with the perfect film stock for her, aptly named "Vivid."
Leigh has always combined or alternated the attitudes of Naked and Happy-Go-Lucky. But there's more Poppy than Johnny to him. How else could he have found the wherewithal to make 18 Mike Leigh movies in a climate that generally fosters conformity?
The reigning virtuoso of movie humanism, Leigh asks you to approach his films as he constructs them, establishing connections with each character.
