Mike Leigh’s latest follows the life and times of Poppy Cross, and the results are an occasionally funny but just as often annoying portrait of this woman’s life.
Poppy (Sally Hawkins) is a super happy, manic, and positive out look of a woman who longs to help everyone like her primary school class she adores. The film serves as a window into her life, and is ultimately a plot loss character study which may irk some viewers. That’s not to say things don’t happen, there a couple of smaller stories mixed in, but there isn’t a definitive goal that for some reason didn’t quite jive with me on this occasion for whatever reason. Also, as a warning, the first reel (10-15 minutes) of this film is excruciatingly painful and annoying to watch. I wanted to plug my ears and punch everyone in the face on screen it was so bad, probably the worst thing I have seen in a movie this year. The scene in question involves Poppy and her friends sitting around drunk and laughing hysterically after a night of fun; this behavior is as annoying as hell in real life, why would it be a good idea to was 5-7 minutes of a film on this, why? Just awful. But moving on, the movie slowly begins to grow on you and really grabs you once the driving lessons begin and we are able to overcome the incredible annoyance of Poppy in the opening frames. [Read more...]