I kept hearing everybody say that people are either going to love or hate Sally Hawkins' performance in this movie. Thing is, I only heard that from people who were universally praising her performance. Maybe that inflated me expectations a bit, I'm not sure, but I hated her performance. It's not just that I found her character annoying, which quite likely was Leigh's intention, but I just think the performance was bad. She is completely one-note for all but a couple scenes, and when those scenes come about it feels like she is out of character because the performance is so narrow for the other 90% of the movie.
I will say that Eddie Marsan was great here, his scenes were the highlight of the film.