OK - I rented two movies I've heard such great stuff about, and haven't been very happy with either. I didn't realize that they were both by Mike Leigh, but the presence of Sally Hawkins and Eddie Marsan in both seems a good clue.
Imelda Staunton as "Vera Drake" acted so well, and the movie was solid, but soooooo slow, and never really went anywhere. And the delightful optimism of Poppy in "Happy Go Lucky" was irritating from the time the movie started.
The constant in both movies seemed lives almost completely unexamined...good-hearted women with a real impulse to make life better, but not actually very interesting people.
In Happy Go Lucky especially, the characters seemed so one-dimensional, and the sound track and Poppy character both seemed so clumsy and inelegant.
Anyone else see both of these flicks? Anyone else have the same response?