Look, Ma: No Meds!

Improbable as such a person sounds, Poppy, the heroine of Mike Leigh's new movie "Happy-Go-Lucky," is happy—without medication, and for no particular reason. That this can serve as the premise of a movie says something about our anxiety-ridden world, and it seems like a sure recipe for facile, Zen-inflected schmaltz. In fact, early in the movie Poppy seems mildly irritating and unintelligent, if not delusional. Holding the book "Road to Reality," she says, "Don't want to be going there."

But simplicity is never simple for Leigh. He knows that the world his characters inhabit is a complex place, and much of the movie watches Poppy, played terrifically by the British actress Sally Hawkins, negotiate the kinds of obstacles—most of which are people—that can make the common urbanite depressive, or at least leave her with a sizable ulcer. Along the way there are some genuinely somber, even frightening moments, which she faces with understanding and compassion, and it becomes clear that Poppy is not a holy fool. Her desires just aren't outsized, which makes them attainable, and she is smart enough to know the difference between the things she can change and the things she can't.

The film opens with Poppy on her bike, on her way, it appears, to no place in particular. It's a suitable introduction, as the loose narrative takes her from one episode to another without any certain end in mind. She talks to her friends, endures the increasingly aggressive tirades of her pedantic, angry driving instructor, meets an unstable homeless man in a dark lot, goes to flamenco classes. In the most dramatic of these moments—when her driving instructor finally boils over and becomes abusive—she comes face to face with some of the pain and ugliness that pervades other people's lives. Unfortunately, not much of this has real consequences for Poppy, leaving the narrative a little slack, and the film offers little visual flair to carry it (though Poppy's wardrobe, made up mostly of mismatched patterns and colors, is fun to watch). Shot for shot, Leigh is an excellent craftsman, but his films are rarely sumptuous affairs. He is more interested in directing his actors, and here as in many of his past films the acting is the movie's strongest point.

A few threads tie the various parts of "Happy-Go-Lucky" together, notably instances of Poppy trying to help people and the theme of teaching and learning. But Poppy doesn't seem to have anything significant to learn. That is perhaps the inherent drawback of such a content character: she's fine as she is. She is not struggling with anything, and consequently the conflict has to come from everyone else. At times it feels as if we watch Poppy just so she can instruct us by example.

Though not Leigh's best, "Happy-Go-Lucky" fits well in his career. "Vera Drake," which earned Leigh an Oscar nomination for best director, centered on a well-meaning old woman (played by a pitch-perfect Imelda Staunton) who shared Poppy's cheer and kindness, though not always her awareness. As Vera saw it, she was just helping young girls in need, even if she was doing so by performing illegal abortions. Poppy helps others in much more quotidian ways, but both she and Vera eventually have to run up against a very complicated and sometimes cruel world that cares little about their good intentions.

Leigh's 1993 film, "Naked," starred David Thewlis as a talkative, nihilistic drifter who was in many ways an early counterpoint to Poppy. That character embodied the philosophical angst and anger that results from not having concrete answers to the big questions, and he was practically motivated by his sense of despair. Where he was restless and disaffected, Poppy is at peace and almost chronically satisfied. He was the high-water mark of a cynicism that has infiltrated many of Leigh's works, just as Poppy is the pinnacle of his optimism.

Taken as a whole, Leigh's films seem part of an ongoing conversation he's having with himself, about how people's surroundings shape them, about what makes people behave the way they do and ultimately how those forces interact. With "Happy-Go-Lucky" he has turned in another solid exchange in this conversation, but for so gifted a filmmaker, viewers may be left hoping for something more next time.