Gold Derby backs ‘Happy-Go-Lucky’

All us awards-watchers know that Tom O’Neil’s Oscar prognostications can be a little wacky (let’s just forget that he predicted “Sweeney Todd” would sweep the top four awards last year, shall we?). Still, he knows the game better than most, and his mid-year list of frontrunners (with assistance from Pete Hammond) in the top three categories makes for interesting reading.

All the usual suspects (“Benjamin Button,” “Frost/Nixon,” “Revolutionary Road,” etc) are present, though there are some surprising choices – he still has “Blindness” and “Synecdoche, New York” (still without a distributor) in his Best Picture shortlist, and “W” crops up there too.

O’Neil clearly isn’t buying into “The Road,” though Viggo Mortensen makes an appearance in his Best Actor list. Meanwhile, two unexpected choices stood out for me in his acting lists: Eric Bana in the bestseller adaptation “The Time Traveller’s Wife” (a fairly unknown quantity that I haven’t seen mentioned elsewhere), and the terrific Melissa Leo in Sundance champ “Frozen River.”

What interested me the most, however, is that O’Neil singles out “Happy-Go-Lucky” for discussion, calling it:

(The) film you may be most underestimating … Mike Leigh’s little flix are often big players (“Vera Drake,” “Secrets and Lies”) and this perky one could be the next “Little Miss Sunshine” or “Juno.” Sally Hawkins already won the Best Actress trophy at the Berlin Film Festival.

I’ve been predicting big things for Leigh’s delightful film (which, incidentally, gets better the more I contemplate it) for a while now, so I’m pleased to see O’Neil shares my faith in it – though I’m not sure I quite agree with his comparison. It’s certainly a warm and very funny film, but there’s more melancholy and bite to it than either “Juno” or “Little Miss Sunshine.”

Back in June, Kris wondered where “Happy-Go-Lucky” would land in Miramax’s awards priorities. Since then, the picture has cleared a little bit. With “Doubt” now seemingly the only other prestige contender on Miramax’s slate, Leigh’s film looks well-positioned to get an awards push from the studio – particularly in the event of “Doubt” disappointing. (I still don’t buy the latter as a Best Picture contender.) And with its profile further raised by its inclusion in the Toronto Film Festival lineup, the prospects for “Happy-Go-Lucky” are starting to look as sunny as its title.