New Mike Leigh Film - Happy Go Lucky
  • flembo
    I'm assuming the new Mike Leigh film which is based on an irrepressibly cheerful north London primary schoolteacher called Poppy, called Happy Go Lucky will include Stroud Green in it.

    A little while ago, cameramen were in our street, filming someone driving a car. They were also possibly in Finsbury Park. I don't know if they have been anywhere else in Stroud Green.
  • poxy
    They were on Fonthill Road, top end, between Red Rita and Tollington.
  • dominic
    Time Out review:

    "Next, we see her down at Koko in Camden, pogo-ing to Pulp before she and her mates stagger back to her flat in Finsbury Park and mess around drunkenly in the living room as the sun comes up."

    Screen Daily:

    "Shot on location around London and making very precise use of the Finsbury Park and Tufnell Park areas, Happy-Go-Lucky catches the mood of the capital as precisely as Leigh ever has, with Dick Pope's photography providing a brisk, no-nonsense realist look. While Leigh doesn't strike entirely new ground, the film's gentler tone nevertheless expands his emotional palette rewardingly."
  • andy

    How could you make a realistic film about the area without any of the characters being registered on sgr.org?

  • flembo
    Well hopefully they'll have my garden on it in one of the scenes with the driving instructor....which is very true to life as the road is often visited by driving instructors....
  • katiejane
    Saw the film lastnight - there are loads of shots of Stroud Green in it - very pleased to see Stapleton Hall/Victoria/Marquis/Lorne/Albert Roads among others! SG - driving lesson capital of north London!

    @ flembo - not sure about your garden though.
  • andy

    Was it any good though?

  • katiejane
    Tremendous.
  • ben
    South of Seven Sisters Rd, the Adolphus Rd-Gloucester Drive-Alexandra Grove one-way system is very popular for driving lessons. Any sign of it in the film?
  • dominic
    katiejane is right, it is a great film, even if it does have Camden Lock in it. The main character's flat is on Finsbury Park Road.
  • dominic
    @ben. maybe, i wouldn't 't recognise it.
  • flembo
    I'm going to see it this weekend and hopefully I'll see if our garden is in it or not. The driving instructor was very close...... I'm glad there's lots of sightings of Stroud Green. The film has had very good reviews.
  • Four Eyes
    I had read good to mediocre reviews about this and on a wet Sunday afternoon went to see this yesterday. What the reviews failed to mention is that nothing, like NOTHING! happens for the tedious 118 minutes.

    I did get *slightly* excited at one point when she whizzed down Upper Tollington Park and I couldn't help saying (too loudly) 'Ooh that's my house!!'. There are lots of shots of Stapleton Hall Road, Victoria, Lorne, Florence, Marquis Roads, but once that was over I settled back down to go to sleep under my coat.

    Thankfully the Clapham Picturehouse has the biggest, most comfy reclining seats. Lovely cinema, rubbish film.
  • tosscat

    Are we an action film fan Four Eyes?

  • Four Eyes
    No I'm not an action film fan at all tosscat. It doesn't take much to make me happy...just a little bit of plot, a faintly believable character, or smidgeon of humour would have been enough for me.
  • David

    I've been a fan for years but the trailer for Leigh's latest has been on TV quite a bit of late and comes across quite phoney and plastic, more akin to a Mimi Driver vehicle.

    Anyone going to see Persepolis?

  • katiejane
    @ Four Eyes - are you Mark Kermode? Only he found Poppy really irritating.

    @ David - what or whom is Mimi Driver?
  • katiejane
    @ David - is it a car?
  • David

    Heh. I can't even get her name right. That wiki has taught me something terrifying - and I know I shouldn't pre-judge - but she has a discography.

  • Liz

    I noticed an ad for her in concert in the paper at the weekend. I was hoping I had dreamt it.

  • tosscat

    She's not the only one - has anyone seen Juliet Lewis?

    I really want to see Persepolis - tomorrow maybe.

  • tosscat

    I saw HGL last night and really quite liked it, although I did begin to fall asleep and was luckily woken up by the...

  • Giles
    Scarlett Johansson has a discography too
  • Ali
    I saw Juliet on Parkland Walk with one of her kids a while back.

    We are having mates from around the country who have see the film and have been to Stroud Green many times phoning really excited about Lorne Road being in the Film.

    I don’t know anything about film making but the continuity of the background was all over the place as they drove around. The background must have been added later as you kept seeing the overhanging rose hedge/bush on the corner of upper Lorne and Victoria Rds. It was flowering so they must have made this around June last year.
  • ShaunG
    Saw Happy Go Lucky last night in Muswell Hill. The film was fine, but rather marred by the mutters all around me every two minutes as someone said "ooh look, that's Victoria Rd", "that's where Brenda lives", etc. Best bit was where they went to the seaside, and the guy behind me felt the need to whisper to his wife "that's Southend".
  • poxy

    Watched this film last night. Bit rubbish really, not a patch on Leigh's best stuff.

  • David

    Despite being a Leigh fan, the tutor screaming "En-Ra-Ha!" as my house whizzed by in the background and realities cross-pollinating with fictional plots as they strolled along Southend front and stopped at a cafe that I'd actually driven to during my own driving lessons as a kid I still thought it was shit.

    I just didn't get the point of any of it. Perhaps I was almost too familiar with the content matter.

  • lizbet
    Poppy made me want to stick pins in my eyes.
  • tosscat

    I liked it.

  • krappyrubsnifkrappyrubsnif
    I saw it for the first time last night too. This was worse than going on Google Street View and trying to see if you can catch a glimpse of yourself walking along the pavement.

    Absolutely the most irritating female character in a film, ever.

    If she was my primary school teacher I'd still be serving time for premeditated homicide.
  • tosscat

    Everyone's so cross at the moment.

    What gives?

  • poxy

    The impending doom and forced jollity of Ch***tmas?

  • David

    I don't need to be cross to slag a shit film.

  • becky

    @krappyrubsnif - your comment has given me the biggest laugh of the night so far! I went to see this film when it was out at Islington vue. There was a bomb scare halfway through so we had to leave the auditorium. They said we could go back any time in the next week to see the rest of the film. Let's just say I never did...

  • matt

    We recorded it on the PVR, not watched it yet

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