Reviewed by Jo Wood
Stars Sally Hawkins, Eddie Marsan, Alexis Zegerman, Andrea Riseborough,
Samuel Roukin, Kate O’Flynn, Sinead Matthews, Sarah Niles | Written by Mike Leigh
UK certification 15 | UK RRP £19.99 | DVD Region 2 | Runtime 120 minutes | Directed by Mike Leigh
There are some people who grace the Earth with glorious eccentricity, talking to strangers in shops, seemingly awkward in their confidence that everyone has the ability to get along, or share some common ground. People who talk to an offendingly unsecure fence from which her bicycle’s been nicked; who lull their mouth open a bit too frequently for one to think they retain all their marbles intact. This movie is about one of those people. Directed and written by Mike Leigh, we follow 31-year-old Londoner Poppy, played painstakingly affectionately by Hawkins, as she slaloms the ups and downs of a single life living and working in the city, in the close comfort of her lifelong friend and flatmate Zoe (Zegerman), her friends, and siblings.
Working as an enthusiastic and ever compassionate primary school teacher, the viewer is invited into a snippet of Poppy’s life, as she learns to drive, and struggles with her elder sisters distain of Poppy’s security in an unsecure life. As quick as one can be to judge such an off-the-wall, ditsy and slightly annoying character, we learn there is so much more to this woman than meets the eye. Her east-end accent misleadingly hides her university education, her clothes and demeanour blanketing her worthy profession, and her apparent naivety gives way to a tolerance and understanding to all warps of life, including her bigoted, bad tempered driving instructor Scott, executed marvellously by Marsan. Scott, constantly infuriated with Poppy’s love of wearing her impossibly high-heeled boots during lessons, wobbles on the verge of sanity, as he struggles to control his hate for anything which dares reside outside his immediate control. His weird and wonderful driving techniques are presented in an arrogant and aggressive manner, which only serve to amuse and charm Poppy into keeping him on as her instructor. Meanwhile at school, tall attractive social care worker Tim helps her deal with a spot of bullying and adds the flash of romance to Poppy’s life that one feels she wasn’t altogether missing in the first place.
As ever, Leigh presents us with unadulterated gritty real life — hideous yet beautiful, crafted on the streets of modern day London. The character development of Poppy is exquisitely unravelled, allowing the viewer to fall deeply in love with not only her soft kind-heartedness, but her raw human flaws, which only makes her insanity seem all the more sane. My only criticism would be its giddy 2-hour length. Probably best served with a bottle of red wine and a Chinese takeout on the sofa, this movie is as intoxicating as it is heart-warming. A magnificently observed documentary of modern day city-life resting better with those who possess a sense of humour and flourish in a world which is out of control.
EXTRAS ** Behind the Wheel featurette; Mike Leigh's Characters featurette; the theatrical trailer.