‘Happy-Go-Lucky’

For what feels like the first time in virtuoso writer-director Mike Leigh’s more than 35 years of bringing insight and intensity to the exploration of human behavior, he has put a thoroughly happy person front and center in one of his films. Played by Sally Hawkins, Poppy practically defines irrepressible. With a personality as distinctive as her wacky clothing style, Poppy’s good humor comes off as both genuine and disconcerting. She is open to experience, someone with a centeredness that keeps her from getting more than temporarily down. Poppy does not fit into a schematic log line, she simply is, existing with an intensity that few filmmakers’ characters can manage.