Happy-Go-Lucky at the NYFF

We kicked off the 46th New York Film Festival with a screening of Mike Leigh's Happy-Go-Lucky. Like all Leigh films, this story about an effervescent young kindergarten teacher named Poppy came out of an intense period of improvisation, which involved hours of discussion among Leigh, Sally Hawkins (Poppy), the set designer, the cinematographer, and various other individuals. The result is a smart, day-glo-colored movie about the effort it takes to be happy in the face of life's relentless irritations. Poppy manages to smile through fights with her pregnant sister, a counseling session with a six-year-old bully, driving lessons from a creepy evangelical who falls in love with her, a strange meeting with a deranged homeless man, and random interactions with those who think her attitude is at best misguided and at worst simpleminded. "It's hard work being a grownup," Poppy tells her best friend Zoe; it's especially hard to grow up and choose joy, day after day.