All in the same boat

Stanley Fish is pontificating about college composition (again!) over at the New York Times, while my college composition students bombard me with panicky e-mails about their first papers and schoolchildren everywhere serve as pawns in a heated debate over the President's message. At times like these, it behooves us to change the subject.

So I'm going to babble a bit about a movie I saw on DVD over the weekend, the British film Happy-Go-Lucky. I tried to describe the plot to a friend yesterday and got nowhere, so let's skip that part. It's a clever and charming and sometimes annoying film about a woman whose attempt to maintain a happy-go-lucky attitude faces a few minor challenges. Doesn't that sound just dreadful? If this were a movie on the Lifetime channel, the main character's cheery disposition would eventually melt the hearts of all around her and provide instant solutions to the messiest human problems. Fortunately, this is not a Lifetime movie.

Let's go ahead and admit that the main character, Poppy, is a little annoying. She giggles a lot and acts pretty silly. I can imagine that many people (particularly men) of my acquaintance would find her unbearably lightweight. They might even sympathize with her driving instructor, Scott, whose bitter and misanthropic attitude comes into sharp contrast with Poppy's bubbliness during their weekly driving lessons. Their conflict raises a question that keeps nagging at the back of my mind: whose attitude is a healthier response to the human condition? Is it better to face the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune with an unreasonably optimistic giggle or with a melancholy gloom always willing to admit the worst?

After all, why couldn't Hamlet just laugh it all off?

If this were a Lifetime movie, Poppy's optimism would eventually cut through Scott's melancholy and convert him into an entirely new person--sort of like what happens to the Ricky Gervais character in Ghost Town, another film pitting cheer against melancholy. But Gervais's conversion in Ghost Town is the least believable part of an entirely unbelievable film (which is nevertheless very funny, particularly when the ditzy doctor is called upon to convey the cheery message, "Everyone dies!").

But Happy-Go-Lucky refuses to take the easy way out. When the conflict between Poppy and Scott finally erupts, the result is not cheerful or optimistic or conventionally satisfying but frightening. In the end, Scott's misanthropy separates him from the human community, while Poppy's cheer keeps her connected to a community that can help her cope with the very real and sometimes frightening insanities of everyday life. She may end up in a boat going aimlessly in circles, but at least she's not alone.