Hard Truths [2024]

Mike Leigh reunited with Marianne Jean-Baptiste in Hard Truths nearly 3 decades after they last worked together in the shattering masterpiece Secrets & Lies; further, he also returned to his preferred setting of contemporary, everyday England over a decade since his brilliant film Another Year. This latest from the great British filmmaker, which could’ve repurposed the title of Almodóvar’s hilarious gem Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, may well rank among his most downbeat works; while he’s made movies with bleaker backdrops and drearier settings, this one came largely devoid of any reconciliations, resolutions and catharses, thereby underscoring its bracing cynicism. At the core of this combustible miniature tale of personal and domestic collapse, in post-Covid UK, is Pansy (Jean-Baptiste), a perpetually edgy and cantankerous middle-aged British-Jamaican woman who’s afflicted with anxiety and depression, and is on the brink of an irreversible emotional meltdown. She keeps lashing out at her taciturn, mild-mannered husband (David Webber) and their withdrawn, soft-spoken son (Tuwaine Barrett), as well as whoever she’s compelled to meet, from her doctor to the cashier at the departmental store and even random strangers at the parking lot. She, as well as the desolate atmosphere at their otherwise fastidiously sanitized suburban house, made for dramatic contrast to her jovial and vivacious sister Chantelle (Michele Austin), and the happily chaotic environment of the women’s parlour that this single mum runs as well as the vibrant energy at her small apartment where she lives with her equally lively daughters (Ani Nelson and Sophie Brown). Jean-Baptiste and Austin were both memorable in this alternately tense, exasperating, darkly funny and compassionate kitchen-sink portraiture of working-class diaspora families barely holding it together.

Director: Mike Leigh

Genre: Drama/Family Drama

Language: English

Country: UK