Monday, March 16, 2009
LIGHT WITH DEPTH
Today's film was Mike Leigh's
A great film about a singular young woman, Poppy, played by Sally Hawkins. (Leigh with Hawkins in the photo)
Poppy is beyond happy go lucky. She is an eternal optimist and can find pleasure in most everything. Nothing gets her down.
In a way, this can be a little hard to take, but this film explores Poppy's depths with considerable skill.
This is another film with no story line. It is a character study. Vignettes are used. They are continuous and unfold a kind of story but mostly they peel away at the Poppy onion.
She is a natural empath. She sees below others' surface. She takes everyone seriously.
She is a teacher and we see her work with a troubled young boy. She meets her own love interest, a counsellor, this way. Another happy person. Later she asks about this. They laugh.
For a reversal in perspective, she becomes a student to learn driving.
The driving instructor played intensely and convincingly by the British comic, Eddie Marsan. He is full of self hatred, a bigot, a man with many sorrows and warped beliefs. No one else would have anything to do with him but Poppy stays with him until she cannot be with him any more. His final rant to her is expresses the other side of Poppy's personna and there is some truth to what he says about her. She takes some of this to heart. But as a lesson. Not a basis to change her style.
This film is great to watch and I recommend the "hard of hearing" subtitles because the accents here are tough to navigate and you do not want to miss one word of dialogue.
I would be happy to see this again. A Mike Leigh fest? So I will give it a 4 out of Netflix5.
