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

I've never used this clich in a review before, and God forbid I ever use it again, so pay close attention: Happy-Go-Lucky is the feel-good movie of the year.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Oct 31, 2008

Sally Hawkins, in a blinding, Oscar-worthy piece of acting so good you barely see it, plays Poppy, a perpetually upbeat elementary schoolteacher in London.

| Original Score: B+ | Oct 31, 2008

Leigh's creation is fixed and unchangeable, admirably optimistic as a person but completely unengaging as a movie character.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Oct 30, 2008

Leigh pushes the story in a more interesting direction, asking whether people find happiness or simply will it on themselves.

| Oct 30, 2008

The intentions of this oddity are muddled, but the small portraits of ordinary people choosing their path through the daily range of depression and delight are fully alive.

| Original Score: B- | Oct 28, 2008

The new Mike Leigh film, Happy-Go-Lucky, is a real pleasure, and besides being Leigh's most buoyantly comic feature it's a marvelous showcase for Sally Hawkins, who has worked twice before with the British writer-director.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Oct 24, 2008

Happy-Go-Lucky doesn't provide many insights (even Poppy seems ultimately unsure about whether happiness can be a permanent condition), but it does provide a little joy -- and that's worth celebrating, at the movies and elsewhere.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Oct 24, 2008

A character study in the classic sense of the phrase, featuring a lead who will stick with you for days and weeks to come. It's easily one of the best movies of the year.

| Oct 24, 2008

Sally Hawkins been in movies before, including Leigh's "Vera Drake" and Woody Allen's "Cassandra's Dream," but this is her star-making role. She was named best actress at Berlin 2008. I will deliberately employ a cliche: She is a joy to behold.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Oct 23, 2008

Expertly directed by Mike Leigh, Happy-Go-Lucky is not only joyous but substantial.

| Original Score: 4.5/5 | Oct 23, 2008

Mr. Leigh has executed a richly exuberant entertainment for our troubled times, and deserves still another of my honorary Oscars for his astoundingly skillful effort.

| Oct 23, 2008

A lighter register than most Leigh films, but the content is as psychologically and dramatically rich as ever.

| Oct 18, 2008

The British actress Sally Hawkins delivers a nervy, utterly captivating tour de force performance in Happy-Go-Lucky, Mike Leigh's transporting new film.

| Oct 17, 2008

Coming from the man who made his name as a director of often grim social-realist films such as Vera Drake, All or Nothing and Secrets & Lies, Mike Leigh's Happy-Go-Lucky strikes one as a film fantasy.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Oct 17, 2008

Happy-Go-Lucky isn't one of Leigh's epic social canvases like Secrets & Lies or even Topsy-Turvy; rather, it's an edgy character study whose message only gradually emerges.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Oct 17, 2008

As refreshing as it is to find a movie that leaves you smiling, it's something much rarer to discover a film that makes you think about what a commitment to happiness really means.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/4 | Oct 17, 2008

Oddball and ingenious.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Oct 17, 2008

It's a small, radiant gem in a movie season cluttered with rhinestones. You leave the theater feeling both clearheaded and buoyant.

| Original Score: A | Oct 13, 2008

There are times during Happy-Go-Lucky where Poppy is entirely endearing and others where she comes off as the bubbliest of emotional terrorists, but Leigh never emphasizes one facet as paramount over another.

Full Review | Oct 11, 2008