The Happy Go Lucky Reader

If you have taken my class, you know I am a huge Kate Winslet fan. Obsessed. Period. No other way to say it. Even as the doomed April Wheeler, the embodiment of love soured as fully as Finn's sippy cup left in the car all day...I found her appealing and attractive. Even as a headstrong Nazi death camp guard...loved her. Genocide? Bad. But those eyes? Dreamy. Unibrowed and old...I would have taken her back if I were Liam Neeson. Then again, Liam Neeson saved all those other refuges from the camps, so...wait....I definitely confused my holocaust movies again.

Anyway, I have fallen in love with a character so deeply and completely in Sally Hawkins' Poppy. I could not even begin to imagine the last time a female lead character so captured my heart. We discussed in class the importance and the power of characterization. Your protagonist IS your story, and Happy Go Lucky is teeming with so many sharp, vibrant characters that are so real. In the conflict between the vision of optimism and faith that is Poppy juxtaposed against the dark, bitter, paranoid anger and yearning of Scott, the racist driving instructor...the film provides characters that are both strikingly realistic, yet still captivating. They are symbolic, but not flat. Delightful film...check it out and letme know what you think or thought. Happy summer by the way, and I hope you all rock it out as you head off (or back) to college.

Short version of post: hawkins deserved Oscar this year...Kate robbed her. The Academy keeps changing the format...maybe in subsequent competitions, two starlets like these will pudding wrestle for the nod.

Be well, and know that the OFI loves ya, baby!