MALLINation

It’s easy to think of at least a few films and performances that got robbed at Oscar nominations time. The Dark Knight for picture and director come to mind, as does WAll-E for the same,Cate Blanchett for Benjamin Button, Michelle Williams for Wendy and Lucy, and Debra Winger for Rachel Getting Married all were conspicuous.

The single biggest omission for me though was the lack of anything – total snake eyes – for Mike Leigh’s Happy-Go-Lucky – a film I found to be extraordinary.

We can start with the Golden Globe snagging performance of Sally Hawkins as Poppy, a woman who chooses breezy happiness and a take life as it comes attitude. In other words, she’s happy-go-lucky.

What’s funny, and sad, and amazing, and insightful is the effect this has on the people around her, from her young, married, judgmental sister to the children she works with at the school where she teaches.

Hawkins has a winning snarky smile and moony eyes but she never goes for the easy way out of playing Poppy as a simpleton. This is a complex, real and sometimes dangerous character who lives and breathes.

Her biggest impact is on the man she hires as her driving instructor. Their comic interludes sparkle at first on the contrast between his uptight dourness and her up-for-anything nature. Eddie Marsan does an expert job of showing just how she unravels this deeply introverted man.

The scenes begin to turn in another direction and Poppy’s understanding of this man deepen as she encounters a madman who has lost touch with reality and a child who seems to be at the beginning of curling in on himself in a similar way to Marsan.

It’s a deeply moving film without being cloying or sentmental, funny without being stupid, and enlightening without being pedantic. Even better, it’s consistently surprisingly.

Too bad Oscar missed the boat on the best film of 2008.