Well made with, as is usual for a Mike Leigh film, the actors taking centre stage and as such it's a very performance-driven piece. Sally Hawkins did a great job as Poppy, although I didn't much like her character, I thought she played it well. For me, the star of the show was Eddie Marsan as Scott; a much more complex and interesting character played with great aplomb. The supporting cast; Alexis Zegerman as Zoe, Sylvestra Le Touzel as Heather and Kate O'Flynn as Suzy were all very good.
A film that seemed to be made up of scenes that didn't really relate to each other particularly well. One minute she's going trampolineing, the next its flamenco and then there's a very interesting scene with a tramp, although I did enjoy some of the flamenco scenes too. The only thing that seems to tie her, seemingly chaotic, life together is the driving lessons with Scott; of which we don't see enough (IMO). Over all, a film that did have its moments but ultimately fell a bit wide of the mark for me.
My Score 6.4/10
IMDb Score: 7.0/10 (based on 21,275 votes at the time of going to press).
MetaScore: 84/100: (Based on 34 critic reviews provided by Metacritic.com at the time of going to press).
Rotten Tomatoes 'Tomatometer' Score: 93/100 (based on 151 reviews counted at the time of going to press).
Rotten Tomatoes 'Audience' Score: 65/100 'Liked It' (based on 32,911 user ratings counted at the time of going to press).
You can find an expanded version of this review on my blog: Thoughts of a SteelMonster.
