Optimism vs.PessimismBy John DeSando, WCBE's "It's Movie Time"
Zoe: You can't make everyone happy.
Poppy: There's no harm in trying that Zoe, is there?
In 2008's Happy-Go-Lucky, Mike Leigh has created a heroine in the spirit of his 1996 Secrets and Lies Cynthia but with more charisma: Poppy (Sally Hawkins) is a bubbly North London schoolteacher whose free spirit is an inspiration and at the same time a reminder of our own daily cynicism.
Leigh's genius once again is to depict workers and explore their challenges and their triumphs. For Poppy the dangers are the mercurial driving instructor and those who would smother her joie de vivre. She's a modern Candide, full of optimism despite evidence to the contrary. Poppy exclaims her happiness with her life, despite the admonishment of her younger sister, who thinks Poppy at 30 should be married with children.
Because Leigh loves her, that affection seeps through every shot. Poppy is a metaphor for happy-go-lucky times in the past and for anyone alive today who hopes for the best. Leigh slowly exposes the dangers such happiness poses for her and those who come in contact with her. She just doesn't command a neutral response to her persona.
At the (2008) Toronto Film Festival, Leigh explained an unrealistic scene in which Poppy dangerously approaches a homeless man in a remote location of the city. Leigh said he wished to pull us out of our comfort zone: He did, and I thank him for it.
Mike Leigh's Secrets and Lies is similar slice of working-class Brit life with a loud-mouthed heroine discovering her hitherto unknown mixed-race daughter. Like Poppy, Cynthia is a force to be reckoned with, another strong female lead (Vera Drake also comes to mind) whom you could like or not depending on your own vision of life as it should be lived to its fullest.
Leigh claims he is not only a realist because he and his actors, who communally develop their script, interpret characters not just create them. Secrets and Lies has the feel of reality without the artifice of today's reality shows. Happy-Go-Lucky carries on his tradition of debating his title by out sizing his protagonist to emphasize the central conflict with those who see danger around every corner as in the case of Scott, the driving instructor, and Poppy's controlling sister.
To make his point about the challenges of optimism, Leigh has Poppy as a grade-school teacher who applies her positive attitude to a disturbed child and finds love in a visiting social worker. Driving- teacher Scott, however, is the foil, a darkly directive facilitator filled with racism and cynicism. Leigh loads the argument in favor of optimism.
Leigh is one of my all-time favorite directors who has never failed to challenge. His work is character-driven drama in which humanity is leeched out of the eccentric by artists who love drama heightened by their immersion in the creative process.
In the end, we are given cinema that crackles with human
imperfection while it elevates us working blokes into heroes--not bad for a director without a script.
John DeSando teaches film at Franklin University and co-hosts WCBE 90.5's It's Movie Time, which can be heard streaming at http://publicbroadcasting.net/wcbe/ppr/index.shtml at 3:01 pm and 8:01 pm and on demand anytime at http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/wcbe/arts.artsmain Contact him at JDeSando@Columbus.RR.com