Leigh’s bleak family drama catches us in an emotional no man’s land, accompanied by a committed performance by Marianne Jean-Baptiste, who plays an incredibly noxious mother who hates people and is in deep pain.
Review #2,987
Dir. Mike Leigh
2024 | UK | Drama | 97min | 2.35:1 | English
PG13 (passed clean) for language
Cast: Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Michele Austin, David Webber, Tuwaine Barrett, Ani Nelson
Plot: Pansy is a woman wracked by fear, burdened by afflictions, and prone to explosive tirades against her family and anyone in her path. Her constant criticism isolates her, except from her cheerful sister Chantal, who remains sympathetic.
Awards: Nom. for 2 BAFTAs – Outstanding British Film of the Year & Best Leading Actress
International Sales: Cornerstone Films
Accessibility Index
Subject Matter: Moderate – Family Problems; Love & Hate; Chronic Anxiety
Narrative Style: Straightforward
Pace: Slightly Slow
Audience Type: Slightly Arthouse
Viewed: Screener
Spoilers: No
Hard Truths, the latest from Mike Leigh, one of Britain’s most accomplished filmmakers, would unfortunately be Dick Pope’s final work.
Pope was Leigh’s go-to cinematographer since Life Is Sweet (1990), and they both collaborated for the last time in this sharp and economical piece on the fragility of human relationships within families, an area the 82-year-old director has been an expert in for many decades.
Marianne Jean-Baptiste is back with Leigh since Secrets & Lies (1996), this time playing a character so acrid and pungent that it will surely make viewers want to reach into the screen to give her the Will Smith-on-Chris Rock treatment.
It is a testament to her committed acting and Leigh’s strong character writing, though I must say that it did feel somewhat overdone, and hence some may find Hard Truths rather exhausting.
“I don’t understand you. But I love you.”
You see, Pansy hates people because she is scared of them, always thinking that harm will befall her. With her noxious personality, where she ‘protects’ herself by spitting hurtful words towards literally anyone that crosses (in both senses of the word) her, it is no wonder that her husband and son rarely speak to her, even if they share the same house. Even doctors and dentists give up tending to her.
As a portrayal of someone in deep pain with no solution in sight, Hard Truths shows us how fractured a family can be, to the point that Leigh forces Pansy to make the hardest decision possible, one that will have profound implications on those around her.
As audiences, we are caught in an emotional no man’s land, if such a terrain even exists. The only solace is that we hope to never get to that stage in life where we become incapacitated by those who are supposed to love us. Family is or isn’t everything until it isn’t or is. That’s Leigh’s ‘hard truth’—we become what we have built.
Grade: B+
Trailer:
Music:
Eternality Tan 