Mike Leigh’s 2008 film Happy-Go-Lucky, one of the most joyous of movies and one of the year’s very best, is a breezy two-hour character study that seems to have the vibrantly unfettered cheer of a coloring book as its foundational text.

| Nov 16, 2023

Happy-Go-Lucky shows a different method of survival than viewers of Leigh's cinema are accustomed, though it is no less serious nor funny than any of his other work.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Feb 14, 2022

Possessing an irrefutable optimism that tends to exasperate those arounds her, Hawkins is a true joy to watch in this wonderful gem of a movie.

| Jun 1, 2021

The characters themselves are often so aggravatingly enthusiastic that the weighty substance intermixed in their conversations will be lost to a powerful sense of annoyance.

| Original Score: 6/10 | Nov 28, 2020

Has an almost wistful charm to it, a kind of bated optimism in a cold and cynical world.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jul 7, 2019

Happy-Go-Lucky features plenty of talent, particularly Alexis Zegerman as Poppy's roommate, but it belongs utterly to Miss Hawkins.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Dec 12, 2018

If you find Hawkins irritating, which is entirely possible, Happy-Go-Lucky could drive you quite crazy. But she won me over, and I suspect that will be the case with most audiences: a bright light in dark times.

| Dec 27, 2017

Happy-Go-Lucky, is, good intentions notwithstanding, a rather fraudulent and half-hearted enterprise.

| Oct 3, 2017

Once we relax enough to be carried along with the overlapping waves of jokes and remarks, the occasional quip pierces through the tornado of words and strikes a funny bone, sometimes before we realize why we are laughing.

| Jun 14, 2016

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 17, 2011

You just want to protect her, from the world, from everything, but really she's much stronger than you are.

| Aug 15, 2011

Happy-Go-Lucky sticks in the memory ... and pays tribute in particular to teachers of children, who haven't allowed the afflictions of the world, and their own personal frustrations, to make them cynical or callous.

| Jul 6, 2010

If you leave the theater feeling uplifted (and unless your heart is made of cold gray concrete, you will), it wasn't due to manipulation, but a result of the film having honestly earned it.

| Original Score: 8.8/10 | Jun 12, 2010

Leigh's most visually beautiful picture since Topsy-Turvy, Happy-Go-Lucky is all about the clashing and connecting of such emotional biospheres.

| Aug 26, 2009

While Sally Hawkins turns out an award-worthy performance as Poppy, I quickly became bored with her life and all the turmoil surrounding it.

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Apr 18, 2009

| Original Score: 5/5 | Mar 26, 2009

Few actors could have pulled off this role successfully, as it requires great energy, charisma and depth to make Poppy credible and so much more than first impressions.

Full Review | Original Score: 78/100 | Mar 23, 2009

Sally Hawkins is a comic revelation, an impish, endlessly charming sprite...

| Original Score: 7/10 | Mar 19, 2009

England's addlepated answer to Amelie!

| Original Score: 4/4 | Mar 13, 2009

Fresh, spunky and well acted. Sally Hawkins is enchanting and the rest of the cast is enjoyable.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Mar 1, 2009