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Now available, 6 Reels Under, David Del Valle's followup to 
I kept hoping Miss Happy-Go-Lucky would get cancer.
“W” magazine ran a story on HAPPY-GO-LUCKY instant star Sally Hawkins. Regarding director/writer Mike Leigh’s famous directing style, “” said: “In this case he had Hawkins construct Poppy from birth, getting the actress into character as a baby and later introducing Poppy to her younger sisters as they, in turn, joined the family as newborns.”
Can you imagine what those 6 months of rehearsal sessions were like?
Did Poppy poop in her diaper or cry from colic for 5 hours? That’s what I would have done to be true to my construction of Poppy as a baby. And then I would have tried to kill the unnecessary intruders for my mother’s love, my baby sisters!
In American society, you better have a good reason to be happy. Having a job and a place to live just isn’t enough.
There is no written script, though Leigh is rather adamant about his process. No one really likes improvised movies. Leigh insists his style is highly structured. After actors spend a lot of time improvising, he selects what he wants and then gets a script supervisor in to record it. “What’s great about Mike is you’re never allowed to see the script written down,” Hawkins says. “You have to know it emotionally rather than knowing it intellectually.” Yep, typing a script, having others judge it, and getting notes from producers, is a real drag on an artist’s creativity.
That all said, I loved Leigh’s VERA DRAKE.
I do not know anybody like Poppy (Sally Hawkins). Maybe they are out there, but they stay clear of me. Poppy giggles, laughs, and doesn’t see anything, even a mishap, as a problem. This is clearly shown in the first scene. Someone steals Poppy’s bicycle. Her response, “Oh, I never got to say goodbye.”
We don’t know why Poppy is the way she is. Certainly her two younger sisters are not like her. Poppy lives with her long-term best friend Zoe (Alexis Zegerman). She works as a schoolteacher. The most adventurous thing she does is sign up for a flamenco class with a fellow schoolteacher. If Leigh needs another muse, why not the emotionally high-strung flamenco teacher (Karina Fernandez)? She was the only one in HAPPY-GO-LUCKY who had passion and drama.
Without her bicycle, Poppy decides she will learn how to drive, and accepts a cut-rate driving instructor, Scott (Eddie Marsan), as her teacher. If Poppy would cringe at anyone, it is Scott. He is anal-retentive, clinically depressed, suicidal, and perhaps a maniac. But, Poppy sees the good and fun in everything. However she never listens to him and will not wear proper flats for driving. She looks good in her heeled boots! It makes Scott crazy! He has a strict driving process and demands Poppy follow all his rules. After a movie filled with these driving lessons, even I know, by heart, Scott’s pyramid!
Herein lies the flaw in Leigh’s directing style. If what happens depends on the actors improvising, should Scott take it upon himself to crash the car or take Poppy to a field and rape her? Where should the actor take the role? Instead, they squabble over and over again. Without a writer and production team setting things up, these two have nowhere to go but literally around and around in circles.
So life hasn’t crushed Poppy’s cheerfulness. But how would her sunny disposition affect Zoe and her friends when she skips off and marries? With Poppy not seeing the downside of anything, she lacks hope and dreams.
Hawkins is being hailed as the next great actress and she does give Poppy a complete personality without making her just a silly idiot. But, people like Poppy get in all sorts of trouble. They lose things, give their rent money away, and are always losing jobs. They are burdens on their friends. But Hawkins’s Poppy is a self-contained, untroubled free spirit and this makes her very likeable.
How would Poppy handle a crisis? We don’t know because the non-script never gave her one!
Poppy has one of those wardrobes that you only see in movies. London looks great and a real, ordinary place to live. If this Poppy were around, I’d avoid her because she’d always need help and cash.