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HAPPY-GO-LUCKY. Dir Mike Leigh. 2008

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Simple, retarded asthmatic gasps and giggles her way through this nonsensical film from Mike Leigh.
30 year old Poppy’s arrested development is masked by her carer who provides meals and stability. This form of care in the community works well so that Poppy is able to extend her adolescence in this flat-sharing arrangement by climbing into bed with her carer and exhibiting teenage tactile behaviour. Her flatmate is tolerant, even when getting no answers as to where Poppy has been and whether or not she’s ok.
To Poppy’s credit she holds down a job. Inconceivably a primary school teacher, she is left in a position of responsibility with young children for long periods without supervision. However, classroom activities are restricted to making masks out of brown paper bags in case anyone thought primary school teaching involved real work.
Leigh raises the possibility of serious subject matter when a boy begins to bully others. Without parental involvement, a Social Worker (Samuel Roukin) is called in to assist. This is a miracle in itself, unprofessional and unrealistic. A second miracle is that he hits on girlish Poppy. Quite a catch, he is tall, articulate and gentle and not put off by Poppy’s inane prattle as she burbles at him like an infant, making faces and squirming.
Randomly inserted scenes bear no relation to each other; a baffling expositional ‘state of the world today’ scene in a bar and Poppy’s unexplained encounter with a homeless madman late at night where no sensible woman would venture. He is more crazed than she is but, when he grabs angrily at her, she is unperturbed.
Deciding to take driving lessons, she is also unperturbed by the disturbing behaviour of her driving instructor (Eddie Marsan), a man clinging to self-control, whose barely contained stress has him at the point of ignition. She fails to detect any danger in him and pushes him over his limit.
Fine acting from Marsan although disturbing and painful to watch. When he does lose control, Poppy speaks to him as though he is an angry little boy rather than a sinister obsessive. His apoplectic tirade against Poppy briefly stems the flow of her verbal dysentery. After his explosive outburst, detailing her maddening transgressions, she sits on the naughty step for a whole minute, thinks about what she’s done, then reverts to the child-like babbling of Thames estuary village idiot.
Unable to understand and react appropriately to the feelings of others and to different situations, Poppy’s imbecilic drivel is provoking and insensitive. Her specific mental disorder is not clarified but, far from creating sympathy, any audience member able to remain in their seat beyond the first ten minutes will want to kill her.

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