It has never really crossed my mind before, but there are a lot of bicycle scenes throughout movie history. There are funny ones, scary ones, exciting ones, inspirational ones, and classics that will live on forever. And this fall there is another great one to add to the list.

As Mike Leigh's newest film Happy-Go-Lucky opens, Poppy (Sally Hawkins) is riding her bicycle through the streets of London with the wind in her hair, a smile on her face, and not a care in the world. Accompanied by lively trumpet music and filled with color, the ride is almost the polar opposite of Elmira Gultch's ominous bike riding introduction in the Wizard of Oz. Although Poppy's bike is stolen immediately after her blissful ride, Poppy's nonchalant dismissal of the mishap immediately tells us this movie will not be another Bicycle Thieves tragedy. In fact, in more ways than one, the scene and the entire movie that follows could even be argued to be a direct reference to Paul Newman's playful bike riding scene in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

"Raindrops keep fallin' on my head / But that doesn't mean my eyes will soon be turning red / Cryin's not for me / Cause I'm never gonna stop the rain by complainin' / Because I'm free / Nothin's worryin' me," sings B.J. Thomas behind Butch Cassidy's romantic showboating. And as Poppy's life continues on past the theft of her bike and Happy-Go-Lucky unfolds, it is as if she is showing us all exactly what those words actually mean.

Already garnering Oscar buzz, Sally Hawkins' Poppy is not only the center of the film, but a unique and vibrant life-force without which the movie would be nothing. Her look is bright, colorful, and free. If something goes wrong, she shrugs it off. If there is any hint of tension in the air, she fills it with laughter. She's the first one to bounce back from a hangover and quite possibly the only patient who has ever smiled while on the chiropractor's table. In the face of frustration, it is refreshing to see in her an alternative to complete meltdown. In the presence of anger, it is liberating to see in her a freedom from its downward pull. And in a world of worry, it is comforting to see that she survives without it just fine.

However, I must confess that as much as I love Poppy, I can understand why not everyone is exactly ready to embrace her optimism with open arms. She needs to take life seriously, save money, buy instead of rent, take responsibility for her life, her younger sister tells her. And as much as I tend to believe that our society can worry about and plan for the future far more than is healthy, there is part of me that (if a bit reluctantly) must agree that Poppy is a bit glib. Although her driving instructor Scott's (Eddie Marsan) paranoid and persecuted outlook on life is extreme, there are moments when I couldn't help but feel that maybe Poppy did need to "wake up" a little more to the realities around her. Even when she laughs her way through her great first date with Tim (Samuel Roukin), the handsome social worker at the school where she teaches, part of me feared that she might miss the true depth of value in the budding romance by simply joking her way through it all.

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