The filmmaker, like Eric Rohmer before him, is a keen observer
of emotional
character, but Gerri and Tom's relationship, though never sentimentalized, suggests in its apparent perfection a
kind of impossible ideal; from Lesley Manville's perpetually frazzled Mary, who our own Matt Noller smartly dubbed a «tragic photo negative»
of Sally Hawkins's Poppy from the more ambitiously conceived Happy - Go -
Lucky, to Peter Wight's obese Ken, a heart attack waiting to happen, no one seems capable
of the couple's sense
of bliss.
Several sections are frankly dull, while others depend on an attempt to allow Stark the same
kind of character depth and developmental arc that
lucky characters in the better comic - book adaptations have enjoyed.