Posts : 4151 Join date : 2007-12-15 Age : 45 Location : Hollandia
Subject: Happy-Go-Lucky - Mike Leigh (2008) Fri Jan 16, 2009 12:02 pm
Happy-Go-Lucky From Mike Leigh
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A look at a few chapters in the life of Poppy, a cheery, colorful, North London schoolteacher whose optimism tends to exasperate those around her.
Mike Leigh is a very particular director. It is only the second movie I watch from him. The first one was Naked which really impressed me for the quality of the dialogues and performance. He leaves a big place to improvisation
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Leigh uses lengthy improvisations developed over a period of weeks to build characters and storylines for his films. He starts with some sketch ideas of how he thinks things might develop, but does not reveal all his intentions with the cast who discover their fate and act out their responses as their destinies are gradually revealed. Initial preparation is in private with the director and then the actors are introduced to each other in the order that their characters would have met in their lives. Intimate moments are explored that will not even be referred to in the final film to build insight and understanding of history, character and inner motivation.
The critical scenes in the eventual story are performed and recorded in full-costumed, real-time improvisations where the actors encounter for the first time new characters, events or information which may dramatically affect their characters' lives. Final filming is more traditional as definite sense of story, action and dialogue is then in place. The director reminds the cast of material from the improvisations that he hopes to capture on film.
Happy-Go-Lucky is a nice and cheerful comedy about a girl who is always happy and want everyone around her to be happy. Here, once more, the dialogues are just perfect and so are the performances. You just can't help but to smile and laugh. Although sometimes I wanted to slap her, that was the purpose of the all thing I think since she is supposed to be over the top happy and anowing. The plot could have been a tinny bit better but overall it is a nice feel good movie