ποΈ Happy-go-lucky
Watching this film, I kept thinking about how my friend had put it on a list of films celebrating the everyday, and how she talked about it.
Movies that celebrate ordinary day-to-day life without implying that the protagonist secretly longs to escape it, or is too shallow/high on prole juice to want βmore.β No high-powered architect jobs allowed!
As well as being largely working/lower middle class, almost everyone in this film is a teacher, at various points along the spectrum of good to bad.
There's another through line about angry and unhappy men - Poppy interacts with many men throughout the film, and the way they react to her is enlightening - whether they are annoyed by her or infuriated by her compassion and bubbly nature. The way she asks her driving instructor if he was bullied in school after watching a kid bully another child, and the way she tries to help him, and ultimately realises she can't.
The above realisation provides the arc or development of the film, although it's quite subtle - really you could class this as a film where nothing much happens, but for me the point is really to spend time with Poppy, an eternal, endearing optimist. Sally Hawkins' performance is extraordinary in really bringing a character who could be annoying (and is to many characters in the film!) or one-dimensional into a living, breathing person you can believe in and root for.
I found this film hard to write about because there's so much here to love, and it reveals so much about human nature and, although universal enough, British culture too. It's definitely become one of my favourites and I'm sure I'll watch it again.