At last, a film that is going to be released for the school holidays without a computer-generated image in sight. Award-winning writer/director Mike Leigh centres his film on very real people. It opens with Poppy (Sally Hawkins) cycling through the streets of central London. She is one of those irrepressibly cheerful people with a good word to say about everyone and everything. Comfortable being single, she parties hard with her girlfriends, takes trampoline and flamenco dancing lessons and makes an effort with her not so upbeat sisters.

Popping into a bookshop, her breezy banter continues despite the lack of response and when she discovers that her bike has been stolen, her only thoughts are that it has flown the nest and she didn’t get a chance to say good bye. She decides that this is just the excuse she needs to begin driving lessons. Needless to say, the neurotically depressed driving instructor Scott (Eddie Marsan) clashes with the lively Poppy. Fortunately, her experience as a primary school teacher helps her deal with the moody instructor and she even tries to help the psychotic man when he snaps under the weight of her cheeriness.

- Advertisement -

Those who are familiar with Mike Leigh’s previous films might be expecting something that plumbs the darker side of human existence, but his latest masterpiece of human observation celebrates a life full of positivities. Although most of the characters reveal their troubled sides, Leigh, with the help of the exuberant Poppy, encourages us to laugh off these foibles. Go see Happy-Go-Lucky and fall in love with Poppy and Sally Hawkins… and life.

Happy-Go-Lucky is rated M and directed by Mike Leigh