Review: British director Mike Leigh takes a walk on the bright side in this wonderfully acted but dramatically uneven look at an eternal optimist.

Story: The irresistibly named Poppy (Sally Hawkins) is a wide-eyed – accentuate the positive – cheerleader of a school teacher with an attitude that says “I want to be your friend.” She is endlessly Happy Go Lucky and even several encounters with those who don’t share her optimistic outlook can’t seem to knock her down. The film doesn’t have a traditional plotline but rather is a series of recurring scenes from her life. After her bike is stolen, she decides to take driving lessons from an increasingly frustrated instructor (Eddie Marsan). Their frequent episodes grow more intense each time as the lessons tend to bring out the pent-up anger of the man trying to teach Poppy how to make a left turn. She also takes Flamenco lessons from a loopy Spanish dance instructor (Karina Fernandez), gets romantically involved in an intense relationship with a social worker (Samuel Roukin), spends time with her best pal and roommate Zoe (Alexis Zegerman), who provides a soothing counterpoint to Poppy’s non-stop cheerfulness, and tries to deal with problems involving her sisters (Kate O’Flynn and Caroline Martin) and brother-in-law (Oliver Maltman).

Acting: Leigh is known for an improvisational style of filmmaking, spending months working everything out with his actors in rehearsal and then letting them do the scenes with only an outline of what it will be. In this environment, actors have to be top notch and indeed Leigh has elicited a few Oscar-nominated performances in the past, including Brenda Blethyn in Secrets & Lies and Imelda Staunton in his last film, Vera Drake. Add Sally Hawkins to the top tier of actors in Leigh films. She is in nearly every scene, and the film lives or dies on her inherent appeal. We are with this irrepressible life force from the very first moment she hits the screen with her rather garish, but colorful outfits and unflappable demeanor. Hawkins is a breath of fresh air, a real discovery. Also getting lots of screen time is Eddie Marsan, as the driving instructor who goes ballistic. His slow, simmering rage is fascinating to watch as the dynamic of the student/teacher relationship goes into unexpected – and uncomfortable – territory. Fernanez provides most of the film’s comic relief as the demanding flamenco instructor, and her scenes with Hawkins are the film’s highlight.

Direction: Leigh is a director known for exploring the lives of British working class. His unique films focus generally on those poor blokes and birds just trying to get by and live a life of dignity despite England’s class system. As one of his film titles suggests, Mike Leigh characters have High Hopes. But Happy Go Lucky is perhaps his lightest and certainly most optimistic film yet. By focusing an entire feature on a central character who exudes happiness and goodwill toward her fellow man, he turns a light also on the problems and hang-ups of people who bounce their woes off her in this oddly segmented film. Leigh’s improv filmmaking techniques work well here but seem less structured and disciplined than usual. The film is too long for its own good and many scenes wear out their welcome halfway in. Still, it’s good to have a craftsman with the kind of singular voice Leigh has still able to make movies his way, because in this instance at least that has produced the gift of Sally Hawkins.

Bottom Line: Hollywood.com rated this film 3 stars.

Review: Despite a promising beginning, this hoary bit of Halloween hokum runs out of both inspiration and momentum at the midway point and ultimately winds up a disappointment.

Story: As the film’s title indicates in no uncertain terms, our heroine, teenager Molly Hartley (Haley Bennett), is haunted by a tragic past that keeps coming back to torment her. Attempting to acclimate to a new school (Huntington Prep), Molly must deal with new classmates and also recurring bouts of nosebleeds and hallucinations – particularly of her wild-eyed mother (Marin Hinkle), who had previously tried to stab her to death, claiming that she was trying to save her from some sort of birthright. “The darkness is coming for you,” said Mom before plunging a pair of scissors into Molly’s chest. What’s really going on? Are Molly’s hallucinations of a psychotic or a supernatural nature? It takes a long while to get to that point, by which time the answer should be obvious ... and long after audience interest has dwindled severely.

Acting: An interesting and attractive actress, Haley Bennett (Music and Lyrics) doesn’t necessarily project the vulnerability that her tormented character would call for, but she seems capable of carrying a film. Unfortunately, this one lets her down – and the problem lies entirely in the story. Everyone else in the cast is saddled with one-dimensional characters: Jake Weber as Molly’s perennially-worried dad; Chace Crawford as the resident hunk; Shanna Collins as a born-again classmate; and Shannon Marie Woodward as a more rebellious classmate. Ron Canada, as the school superintendent, is on and off the screen so fast one wonders why he bothered at all. There is, however, a nice if smallish turn by Nina Siemaszko as the school’s guidance counselor, who’s clearly got her eye on these goings-on.

Direction: The Haunting of Molly Hartley marks the feature directorial debut of Mickey Liddell, who previously toiled on the small screen as a producer of “Everwood” and “Jack & Bobby,” two shows with prominent teenaged characters – so he has experience in the field. There are some interesting camera angles, and technically the film is competent enough, but the story unravels at the midway point, and Liddell is unable to stop the skid. By the film’s (foregone) conclusion, it’s begun to telegraph its shocks and its plot twists with increasing regularity. It’s well-made, but it’s also flat. There’s not a particularly high body count, but there’s obvious editing in some of the more violent scenes – clearly an attempt to earn the film a PG-13 rating, which is a far friendlier proposition at the box-office, where this should earn some decent coin from the horror faithful.

Bottom Line: Hollywood.com rated this film 2 stars.