I’ve recently rewatched two favorites, one new and one old, and I’m here to urge you to see them, if you have not. From the get-go, I knew I would want to watch Happy-Go-Lucky again with subtitles, and now that it is out on DVD and I have done so, I feel happy and lucky to confirm it as my pick for best film of 2008. Much of the dialogue is tossed offhandly in accent, so that subtitles add another dimension of marvel at the wit and depth of Mike Leigh’s direction and Sally Hawkins’ inhabitation of the character of Poppy, certainly the performance of the year, a lovely and believably quirky woman, who remains happy even when her luck goes bad, in a world of anger and hurt.
Flirting looks even better than when it was made twenty years ago, as our first glimpse of Thandie Newton, Nicole Kidman, and Naomi Watts. Noah Taylor brings his wry grit to the presumably autobiographical protagonist of writer-director John Duigan’s tale of romance and rebellion in a pair of Australian boarding schools that face each other across a moonlit lake. Specific to 1965 yet universal in appeal, this coming of age story is funny and uncommonly true, and I defy you not to enjoy it.
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