Hard Truths
Pansy (Marianne Jean-Baptiste) is depressed, has chronic pain and cannot find anything resembling joy in her life, forcing everyone around her to face "Hard Truths."
Laura's Review: B+
Writer/director Mike Leigh reunites with his "Secrets & Lies" star Marianne Jean-Baptiste 28 years later using his usual methods of improvisation and workshopping his characters for a study in sisterly contrast. Jean-Baptiste is phenomenal as a woman who finds fault everywhere she looks, often followed by immediate regrets she tries to hide even from herself.
Pansy keeps a spotless home in a London suburb that reflects its owner by its lack of any kind of personal touch. As she moves about the house removing anything disrupting her stark, bare surfaces, she finds fault with every thing her adult son Moses (Tuwaine Barrett, "Back to Black") has done or failed to do. He remains silent, as does her husband Curtley (David Webber, "Captain Phillips") when he returns home from work, the two men eating in silence as Pansy goes off on a diatribe about every little thing under the sun. Pansy's vitriol is so outlandish, it can provoke laughter, at least until one considers the effect it has on others.
When she leaves the house, everyone she comes into contact with will face criticism, whether it be a war over a parking space, someone trying to check out at the grocery store or a sales clerk simply trying to help (after Pansy spews bile at the woman and demands to see her manager, she slips away, looking ashamed of her own behavior). She is so awful at her dentist's office, her dentist offers her the option of finding a new one. And, oddest of all, she snaps every time her sister Chantelle (Michele Austin, "Secrets & Lies") asks if she is going to accompany her to place flowers at their mother's grave on Mother's Day.
Chantelle is the light to Pansy's darkness, an upbeat hair stylist who is always smiling. Her two adult daughters, Kayla (Ani Nelson), a cosmetics marketer, and Aleisha (Sophia Brown), a legal assistant, face typical obstacles at work but appear well adjusted, both attempting to get their cousin Moses out of his funk. Chantelle takes time out of her day to go to Pansy's house to do her sister's hair, not allowing Pansy to drag her down. 'I don't understand you but I love you,' she'll offer, the one person willing to accept her as she is.
When Mother's Day arrives, we see that Pansy has finally relented, accompanying her sister to their mother's grave site, but she refuses to participate in Chantelle's ministrations to the plot and we begin to sense that maybe Pansy's misery is rooted in her relationship with her mother. Back at Chantelle's bright, colorful home, Kayla and Aleisha are busy dishing out big plates of food, catering to their uncle and cousin, but Pansy refuses to eat, resisting anything she might take pleasure in. Then Moses mumbles that he got her some flowers and the impact of that gesture is astonishing given all that we've seen.
But when Pansy returns home and finds them, her reaction is as bizarre as we've come to expect, her rage building into a furnace blast which takes out Curtley. His friend from work, Virgil (Jonathan Livingstone), intercedes, leaving us with a very uneasy truce. Leigh closes with a little uplift, Moses approached by a friendly stranger (Donna Banya) at a London monument, a different woman perhaps about to effect some change in his life.
"Hard Truths" is both an exceptionally unique character study and an examination of how differing matriarchal worldviews affect family dynamics.
After giving it an awards qualifying run on 12/6/24, Bleecker Street releases "Hard Truths" in theaters on 1/10/25.
