Momentum Pictures presents the release of Happy-Go-Lucky on DVD, a laugh-out-loud comedy about having fun, looking for love and getting on with life. From one of the UK’s most respected writer-directors, Mike Leigh, Happy-Go-Lucky is released to buy and rent on DVD on 18 August 2008, priced £19.99 RRP.

Sally Hawkins (Little Britain, Vera Drake, Tipping the Velvet) stars as Poppy, a consistently cheerful primary school teacher, who doesn’t let anyone or anything get her down.

A free spirit, she is open and generous as funny and anarchic as she is focused and responsible.

Happy-Go-Lucky is set in contemporary London and follows Poppy’s adventures as she goes about her daily life, living with her flatmate Zoe (Alexis Zegerman).

A friend to many and an eternal fun-lover, Poppy is one of life’s sunny and relaxed characters - for example, when her bicycle is stolen, she simply regrets that she didn’t get the chance to say ‘goodbye’ to it.

The incident prompts her to learn to drive, and Poppy starts trying to spread some sunshine over her new driving instructor, Scott, played by Eddie Marsan (Vera Drake, The Illusionist).

He’s having none of it, though the grumpy, aggressive neurotic Scott is the complete antithesis of Poppy, and their relationship provides lashings of laughs.

The movie sees Poppy confronting some of life’s harshest realities and dealing with them head-on, while never losing her wonderful sense of humour. Life-affirming, fresh and funny, Happy-Go-Lucky won a Silver Bear Award for Best Actress at the Berlin International Film Festival.

Mike Leigh is one of Britain’s best-loved film directors, with a career spanning nearly forty years. Always creating his own original screenplays by working in a unique way with his actors, Leigh has earned world-wide critical acclaim for his acutely observed work.

While his movies challenge the audience to ask questions and to reflect, they never fail to be moving, funny and highly entertaining.

Mike Leigh has won a number of prizes at major international film festivals - most notably he won Best Director for Naked at the 1993 Cannes Film Festival, as well as the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 1996 for Secrets & Lies.

He has been nominated for an Academy Award® five times, twice each for Secrets and Lies and Vera Drake (Best Original Screenplay and Best Director) and once for Topsy-Turvy (Best Original Screenplay).

Mike Leigh’s controversial and award-winning 1993 film Naked is released as a stand alone DVD for the first time on 18 August 2008 from Thin Man Films and Spirit Entertainment priced £15.99 RRP. 

Regarded by many as Mike Leigh’s masterpiece, this daring and abrasive film follows the anarchic Johnny (David Thewlis) on his dark journey through a corrosive world. Profound and often shocking, it bursts with ideas and contradictions, and is filtered with love, sex and black humour. 

The DVD includes a trailer and commentary by Mike Leigh, David Thewlis and Katrin Cartlidge.

The Mike Leigh DVD Collection, showcasing the writer-director’s outstanding ten feature films in a stunning box set is also currently available to buy, priced £59.99 RRP.