Happy-Go-Lucky (DVD)

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Director Mike Leigh also wrote the script and received another Oscar nomination for his screenplay, as he did for "Vera Drake." He lingers long enough each scene for it to feel like real-life, but gets out before it starts to drag. Sometimes quick cuts provide odd flashes of Poppy's personality sandwiched in-between longer scenes, while other times he's able to sustain the film's tireless energy and enthusiasm by expertly employing the kind of overlapping dialogue that drove the old screwball comedies. The difference is, this isn't a romantic comedy with a love-hate relationship that spins like a bottle and finally settles on love. It's all about love and hate, anger and laughter, and remembering that life is a gift to be unwrapped every day with the same joy as on Christmas morning. And Sally Hawkins was the perfect messenger to deliver it to us.

"Happy-Go-Lucky" is rated R for language.

Video:
Miramax offers a transfer that's decent, with good color saturation and detail for a DVD. It's presented in 2.35:1 widescreen, "enhanced" for 16x9 televisions. There's some but not much grain, and so overall it's a nice video package.

Audio:
The English Dolby Digital 5.1 audio is decent too, though the scenes are few which remind us that the rear speakers are indeed connected. School scenes and club scenes and the sounds of traffic come across, but at other times it's mostly the front mains and center speaker that carry the load. Bass and treble have a nice balance, though, and dialogue never gets lost among the effects or ambient noise. Subtitles are in Spanish.

Extras:
There aren't an overwhelming amount of extras, but what's here serves as a nice complement to the film. Leigh offers an engaging commentary that clues us in on the writing process, casting, behind-the-scenes filming, and director's decisions. He's a very cerebral writer and director, and he has a lot to say about both creative and directorial strategies. There are also two short bonus features, "Behind the Wheel of Happy-Go-Lucky" and "Happy-in-Character," which focus on the main characters and show behind-the-scenes clips. The latter is just under 27 minutes long and is probably heavier on the talking heads than it is on clips. There's some overlapping with the commentary, but also some nice insights here. Hawkins remarks, for example, that her character "just doesn't shut up, and she thinks she's hilarious as well. As much as she doesn't judge others, she doesn't judge herself." So it's not just actors telling us the obvious about their characters. It's how they see them, inhabit them, and as Hawkins says, under Leigh's direction "everyone is building his character from birth" so they know them inside and out.

The second feature is considerably shorter (just under five minutes) and includes technical aspects, such as how the driving scenes were filmed. There's more of the same talking heads and clips, but augmented with clips that show the actors behind the scenes as well. Just about the time you get going, though, you find yourself wanting more.

Bottom Line:
"Happy-Go-Lucky" is a character tour-de-force for Sally Hawkins, but also a great vehicle for Eddie Marsan as the driving instructor who turns out to be her nemesis. As we watch her toy with him the way a cat paws at a stuffed animal, and as we watch him counter with another attempt to introduce her to the "real" world, we realize that we're watching two dynamite performances spotlighted within an engaging comedy.

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