At last I've got back to the cinema (that's what comes from waiting for someone to see Son of Rambow with) and what a return, not only did I see this lovely film but I got an extended advert for Pushing Daisies in the previews, which was an unexpected bonus. Anyway, the film.
It's just a delight, the film follows Poppy (played by the magnificent Sally Hawkins, so searingly brilliant in ITV's adaptation of Persuasion last year) who is an eternally nice and perky primary school teacher who has her bike stolen at the beginning of the movie (she takes this, like everything else, in her stride with defiant good nature). So she starts driving lessons, a colleague takes her along to flamenco lessons, she goes out occasionally and has lots of laughs with the girl she lives with (also a fellow teacher).
Poppy is the film. She's a wonderful creation and a delight to follow, Hawkins plays her effortlessly and embues her with such freshness, light and warmth only the most stone-hearted of cynics could fail to be mesmerised by her. It is a tribute to the character building of director Mike Leigh and Hawkins that the film works because of her. For example, the ever-reliable Eddie Marsan plays Poppy's driving instructor, a racist, devout, short tempered runt of a man with rotting teeth and a rotting soul. He is a thoroughly unlikable character but we do eventually feel a semblance of sympathy because we see him through Poppy's eyes.
At the beginning her chipper, optimistic charm bounces off fellow characters and probably some of the audience watching but gradually we see in this woman what is secretly within all of us. By the end we are thinking like her, it is other characters who either do or don't "get" her and this only entrenches us firmly with Poppy and her outlook. It's consistently funny, sweet and entertaining and becomes moving when it needs to. I had a smile on my face for 90% of this film and just consistently uplifting an audience is probably even more challenging than making them laugh, which this film also does. It's beautiful really, bravo Mr. Leigh and bravo Miss Hawkins.