Hard Truths
Mike Leigh reunites with his Secrets & Lies star Marianne Jean-Baptiste for a terse portrait of a woman with deep anger issues
We’ve all had days when you wake up in a funk and feel like everyone was put on earth specifically to antagonise you, but that’s every day for Pansy (Marianne Jean-Baptiste), the protagonist in Mike Leigh’s Hard Truths.
Leigh's films often focus on characters beset by unhappiness and loneliness, but few cases have been as chronic as this. Pansy glares and snaps at strangers in the street before coming home and ranting at her husband and son, both of whom have been cowed into resigned silence. Her entire posture is like a clenched fist, closed off and ready to fight the world, but Jean-Baptiste's astonishingly vivid performance makes us see how her belligerence is rooted in her pain. It’s both frustrating and heartbreaking to watch Pansy isolate herself, particularly when Leigh contrasts her with her sister Chantelle (the marvellous Michele Austin) who enjoys a warm, buoyant relationship with her daughters, and wants nothing more than to pull Pansy out of her sadness.
Like Naked’s Johnny and Happy-Go-Lucky’s Poppy, Pansy is a character whose demeanour and spirit seem to shape the film around her. The shortest film Leigh has made since Career Girls, Hard Truths has a terse, blunt quality that can leave it feeling undernourished in the moment, but it’s a tough film to shake. Leigh doesn’t offer any easy catharsis and redemption, and he makes no attempt to glibly diagnose this woman’s deep-rooted malaise. In one of the film’s most poignant moments, Pansy’s exasperated sister asks her why she is so angry, and she can only mutter weakly, “I don’t know.”
Released 31 Jan by StudioCanal; certificate 12A