I've never used this clich in a review before, and God forbid I ever use it again, so pay close attention: Happy-Go-Lucky is the feel-good movie of the year.

Sally Hawkins, in a blinding, Oscar-worthy piece of acting so good you barely see it, plays Poppy, a perpetually upbeat elementary schoolteacher in London.

Leigh's creation is fixed and unchangeable, admirably optimistic as a person but completely unengaging as a movie character.

Mike Leigh’s 2008 film Happy-Go-Lucky, one of the most joyous of movies and one of the year’s very best, is a breezy two-hour character study that seems to have the vibrantly unfettered cheer of a coloring book as its foundational text.