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RopeofSilicon: Latest Headlines (Free subscription) | 01/12/2008
... British Independent Film” award winners were Control , This Is England , The Constant Gardener , Vera Drake and Dirty Pretty Things . Of that bunch there are eight Oscar nominations including a win for Rachel Weisz for The Constant Gardener , but there isn’t a best picture nom among them and the last two weren’t even nominated. So to say this is a sign of anything major is a lot of...
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Ubyssey Online (Free subscription) | 14/11/2008
Her energy and slyness pull us in. Sally Hawkins plays the hilarious Poppy, and though Hawkins has done major films in the past (Vera Drake, Cassandra’s Dream), Happy-Go-Lucky is her break-through performance, winning her this year’s best actress award at the Berlin Film Festival. Not to be forgotten are her co-stars Eddie Marson (The Illusionist), who plays a pain-in-the-ass driving...
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Orlando Sentinel (Free subscription) | 12/11/2008
Leigh, a true actor's director in that the actors help him script his films, turns Hawkins loose on the great Leigh-vet Eddie Marsan (Vera Drake) as Scott, a seething misanthropist who takes his driving instruction deadly serious."We're going to listen and concentrate," he begins, but Poppy will do neither. "You can't control a car in high heels," he tells her, lesson after lesson. She...
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Seattle Film Buff (Free subscription) | 10/11/2008
... doesn't even seem concerned about reporting it to the police.Written and directed by Mike Leigh (Vera Drake), Happy-Go-Lucky doesn't so much have what you would call a conventional plot; it's more of a showcase for Poppy's endlessly cheerful outlook on life and how that personality reflects off the different characters in her life.For instance, there's the ever-growing tension between...
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LA Times (Free subscription) | 09/11/2008
... star got a best actress nod, was snubbed in the directing and writing categories, as he was when "Vera Drake" competed here in 2004 and "Secrets and Lies" contended in 1996. The five-time Oscar nominee's only nod here came in 2002 for "All or Nothing" — he lost to ("Talk to Her"). Hawkins, winner of the Berlin film fest best-actress prize, is an contender, as is nominee ("I've Loved...
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Blogcritics: Video (Free subscription) | 07/11/2008
Sally Hawkins (Vera Drake, The Painted Veil) stars as Poppy, a primary school teacher in London who doesn’t let anything get her down. When her bicycle gets snatched from outside the bookstore where she is browsing, she simply laments the fact that she never got a chance to say goodbye. Predictably, Poppy is the kind of person who provides a constant stream of frustration for most of...
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i4U (Free subscription) | 04/11/2008
... from around the world, including: Colin Salmon (Tomorrow Never Dies, 8.3 Minutes), Phil Davies (Vera Drake, Secrets and Lies, Bitter) and John Sessions (In The Name Of The Father, Dylan, Bitter). The movies were shot at locations ranging from the legendary Pinewood Studios to the lakes and open spaces of Canada and New York City. More details in the Sony .
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kansascity.com (Free subscription) | 30/10/2008
Rated R | Time: 1:58 Mike Leigh, cockeyed optimist? That notion hardly squares with such Leigh films as “High Hopes,” “Naked,” “Secrets & Lies,” “All or Nothing” and “Vera Drake,” dark working-class dramas in which humor — if it exists at all — is a tool to keep terror at bay.
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The Rabbi Report (Free subscription) | 31/10/2008
... movies today quite so happy or go-lucky as Poppy, as played by the irrepressible Sally Hawkins ( Vera Drake , The Painted Veil ). Constant movement is integral to Poppy's nature and as the film opens, we observe her breezing about London on her bicycle, waving and smiling at passers-by. They are all off camera and, frankly, who they are and whether they are returning her waves is...
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A.V. Club (Free subscription) | 24/10/2008
... D'or-winning Secrets & Lies, the lively Gilbert & Sullivan biopic Topsy Turvy, and his last film Vera Drake, a devastating portrait of a back-alley abortionist in '50s Britain. Leigh shifts gears again with his latest film Happy-Go-Lucky, the surprisingly colorful and deceptively light-hearted tale of an indomitable optimist in a pessimistic world. An extraordinary Sally Hawkins stars...
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eFilmCritic (Free subscription) | 23/10/2008
The internationally acclaimed director talks about his latest film, "Happy-Go-Lucky."Thanks to such internationally acclaimed films as “High Hopes,” “Life is Sweet,” “Naked,” “Secrets and Lies,” “Topsy-Turvy” and “Vera Drake,” British director Mike Leigh has long been considered one of the great filmmakers working today and with his latest effort, the beguiling “Happy-Go-Lucky,” he has...
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Seattle Post-Intelligencer (Free subscription) | 22/10/2008
... and 10 highly acclaimed theatrical features -- including "Secrets & Lies," "Topsy-Turvy" and "Vera Drake" -- that have earned him five Oscar nominations.His new film, "Happy-Go-Lucky," is a change-of-pace character study of an incorrigibly optimistic woman that won its star, Sally Hawkins, the best actress prize at the Berlin Film Festival in January and has been generating Oscar...
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Pajiba (Free subscription) | 22/10/2008
Life, Still Sweet Happy-Go-Lucky / Phillip Stephens The films of Mike Leigh have always come dangerously close to finding genuine human idiosyncrasies on cinematic landscapes. Few times have these portraits been happy ones, from the existential nausea of Naked to the "kitchen sink" social realism of Vera Drake and All or Nothing . Leigh's explorations have differed depending on context,...
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Tiny Mix Tapes (Free subscription) | 20/10/2008
... of a departure from the director’s more somber fare, but the chipper Poppy is not so dissimilar to Vera Drake, Leigh’s most recent heroine, who maintained a buoyant façade while performing illegal abortions. Poppy’s perkiness, made vivid by the excellent Hawkins, is so disarming – and relentless — that we’re sure she must be masking deeper neuroses. She can’t stand still, craning...
