Hard Truths

Nobody makes films quite like Mike Leigh, and that may be because nobody’s films more accurately resemble humanity than his. There is nothing glamourous, nothing artificial about a Mike Leigh film. Certainly not Hard Truths.

Marianne Jean-Baptiste astonishes as Pansy, the most unpleasant woman in England. Profoundly unhappy with everything and compelled to share her vitriol, Pansy is a tough character to love. Perhaps impossible.

Leigh traps us for 97 minutes with a woman we would, in real life, do anything to get away from and Jean-Baptiste insists that we see her humanity, edgy and prickly as it might be. This performance should be studied.

A supporting cast of characters, each bringing laughter as well as drama, buoys the quick run time. David Webber, in particular, excels, bringing surprisingly touching depth to a character with barely two sentences of dialogue. That’s mainly thanks to Pansy.

Luckily, Pansy’s unpleasantness is balanced by her sister, Chantelle (Michelle Austin). Open, caring, and endlessly forgiving, Chantelle is Pansy’s opposite, and only friend. Austin’s warmth, which Leigh brings to the screen at exactly the necessary moment, offsets Jean-Baptiste’s bitterness and allows for a real story to begin to take shape.

As is so often the case with Leigh’s films (Mr. Turner, Happy-Go-Lucky, Secrets & Lies, and on and on), the story unveils itself slowly. His writing is as deceptively structured as his direction, forever suggesting fly-on-the-wall but seamlessly moving toward deeply human revelations.

It is this masterful craftsmanship that steers his films away from parody, from caricature, from melodrama and toward poetry. Leigh accepts even the most flawed and unlikeable character, holds them with compassion if not forgiveness. He doesn’t solve their problems, often doesn’t even offer them an opportunity at redemption. But he refuses to ignore even those people you would not want to have to spend 97 minutes of your own life with. And miraculously, in giving Pansy just a little slice of your day, your own humanity deepens.