I went to see this film with my daughter and didn't quite know what to expect. I was pleasantly surprised and wouldn't mind seeing it again. Loved the scene with the flamenco teacher! Definately worth a viewing.

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I can see why some people found Poppy the central character irritating but we loved her. But we did find ourselves laughing out loud when others in the cinema were a bit quiet.

We also loved the realistic portrayal of North London - not glamourised or sanitised.

We felt that Poppy was a real antidote to the usual "cool" and style obsessed young women usually found in films - OK she would probably be irritating in real life but her funny ways seemed to stem from nerves and shyness and the things she came out with were just what a lot of us would like to say - for example the scene in the book shop where she trys to chat and gets no response from up themselves "cool" guys running the shop.

Good on you girl - life would be better if we all all had a bit of Poppy in our lives.

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Poppy starts off as almost a caricature of herself – unbelievably optimistic and positive, seeing the bright side of every situation, unstintingly committed to her friends, to her work as a primary school teacher, to life. Faintly annoying to the most like-minded of us, and extremely so to those who see her happiness as purely superficial and rooted in naivety. She encounters at least four people distressed and unhappy to varying degrees – a young boy caught bullying at school, a flamenco teacher betrayed by her lover, her bigoted and uptight driving instructor, and the entirely believable (to those have met people like him), brilliantly played, very disturbed homeless man in a derelict part of town. We see her lose some naivety, become perhaps less superficially happy at times, but more deeply contented.
The film explores the very narrow social margin around happiness – too much seems unbelievable or insulting to others, but admitting you are not happy is something of a taboo. Some people bottle up their unhappiness until they explode - as the four characters mentioned above demonstrate. And there’s no objective measure of happiness. All summed up in the typically brilliant Mike Leigh-created, family get together in Southend. Also, this film is about growing up as an adult – how do we hold on to the optimism of youth (if we want to), while in our own lives, and in the lives of those around us, we experience disappointment and damage?
Oh yes, and it’s very funny too.

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