Happy-Go-Lucky feels like an interesting precursor to the pair of Paddington films that its leading lady, Sally Hawkins, would go on to appear in, in that both the Paddington films and Happy-Go-Lucky are British features centered on protagonists who are upbeat and kind to everyone in the far harsher world around them. Hawkins, unlike in the Paddington movies, get to be that chipper lead character in Happy-Go-Lucky, which is entirely focused on a schoolteacher named Poppy and if you've seen Hawkins in any movie besides Godzilla (where she was bizarrely relegated to an almost dialogue-free part as Ken Watanabe's generic assistant), you know she's got more than enough talent to pull off such a role with finesse.
