Happy-Go-Lucky

There's a song off the Pecker soundtrack called "Happy-Go-Lucky-Me" by Paul Evans, a 50s rock and roll ditty that Evans laugh-sings his way through. The song makes you infectiously happy just by listening.
Similarly the English import Happy-Go-Lucky contaminates viewers with giddy pleasure. Were the film  helmed by anyone but cinema stalwart Mike Leigh, Happy-Go-Lucky might have obstacles to overcome what is basically a small character study. But with Leigh's vision that makes one person's attitude a microcosm of our daily reality, and Sally Hawkins giving the most effervescent performance you can imagine, Happy-Go-Lucky just keeps getting better as it progresses, even as its characters become more charming and like personal friends.
Hawkins plays Pauline Poppy Cross, and with a nickname like Poppy it's no surprise that her demeanor bounces up and down the screen. Hawkins' smile is mile wide, flush with teeth and good will. In the late 50s and early 60s there was the British cinema movement recognized by its kitchen sink realism and angry young man characters. Happy-Go-Lucky inhabits those environs only Poppy leans more to the happy young lass school of thought. We first meet Poppy getting drunk with some mates and then partying all night when the pub closes. But then there's a serious side as you follow her to her job, grade school teacher.
Everything in the movie supports Poppy on her way to even greater happiness. And all these less developed characters are templates from other Mike Leigh films. Whether it's one of Poppy's daft friends, or a fellow educator investigating one student's family background, or a driving instructor (Eddie Marsan, on the rise as the bad guy in Hancock and playing John Houseman in the upcoming Me and Orson Welles) who has lost his grip on the steering wheel of life. Marsan goes off on a Biblical rant that reminded me of the David Thewlis character from Leigh's breakthrough domestic release Naked.
Leigh comes on light and frothy in films like Happy-Go-Lucky, and Career Girls, or Life is Sweet with the same intensity that he channels tragic karma in films like Naked or Secrets & Lies and Vera Drake. Either way he makes films with characters that fascinate you from the get-go.