by Cris Mora-Villa, Contributing Writer
There are myriad directors whose celebrated or unsung body of work remains unexplored territory for me. When considering the sheer breadth of filmmakers who have helmed several feature films in a vast array of countries across entirely different eras, the reasons for anyone’s gaps in regards to their wider filmic knowledge reveal themselves quite simply. Mike Leigh is one such individual who sits firmly in that queue for me. As a staple of the British film canon, Leigh from all that I can surmise, specializes in microscopically focused human stories. Centering on interpersonal relationships, both outside and underneath the purview of contemporary friendship and familial dynamics, there seems to be an unwavering tie to the idea of human emotions ascending to the forefront of his characters lives. His most acclaimed work, his 1996 film Secrets & Lies, is a true testament to this idea. A film brimming with emotionally fraught characters from a seemingly ordinary family whose own internalized sentiments comes to a head. It’s one of only two Leigh films I’ve seen up to this point, but it is also a film of great importance to not only finding an understanding of who Leigh is as a filmmaker, but what its added significance is to his latest picture, Hard Truths.
Hard Truths follows the everyday goings-on of Pansy (Marianne Jean-Baptiste), an embittered, middle aged housewife who, along with her effervescent sister Chantelle (Michele Austin), come together to commemorate their mother’s passing on Mother’s Day. Both Austin and Baptiste have had previous collaborations with Leigh, both having appeared in Secrets & Lies, and Austin later appearing in two additional Leigh films in minor roles. While Baptiste would have a notably larger role in Secrets & Lies than any of Austin’s collaborations with Leigh, each actor’s shared experience with the director, going back nearly 30 years, offers a rich sense of history to the characters they are inhabiting in this latest picture. As a confidante of Hortense Cumberbatch (Baptiste) in Secrets & Lies, Austin may only have a few scenes in that film, but her affable spirit accentuated within that small window does carry over to Hard Truths. Chantelle is a single mother to two fully grown and socially spry daughters, Kayla (Ani Nelson) and Aleisha (Sophia Brown). With the absence of a paternal male figure in the family’s ecosystem, what we’re able to see when the focus is on these three women is a precious string of moments that epitomize the kind of family that has become out of those circumstances. Unwaveringly earnest and lovingly joyous is an apropos delineation of the makeup of this trio of women. Not a terribly unique set of descriptors, but the proverbial state of bliss between mother and daughters goes to show a tremendous level of dissonance in how Chantelle’s effeminate family differs from her sisters.
A question that one could pose to virtually any character in the film is to describe Pansy as a person in whichever way they see fit. Be it a prominent fixture of the ensemble cast or an individual passerby confined to a single scene, it would be an absolute certainty that one pervasive thought in particular would eventually come to mind for any one being asked. The exact verbiage could vary from person to person, but the central thought can still be boiled down to the notion that Pansy does not belong around other people. Pansy herself might even agree with such a sentiment, as there is no shortage of evidence which proves otherwise. Call it belligerence, apathy, resentment, or melancholy, the gamut of emotions swelling within Pansy know no avenue to express themselves in any sort of conducive manner. That leaves sheer force as the only way forward. Agoraphobia rears its head in light bursts of insinuation that could be interpreted to partially explain why Pansy acts the way she does, but her inner conflict extends far past any sort of mechanically constrictive disorder as the root cause for her accustomed mode of existence. That distinction lies with the omnipresent baggage that has mutated over a lifetime of the emotions that have gone repressed. In turn, what that has allowed for in the meantime is a constantly flowing expression of all the wrong emotions.
The context for understanding why and how these emotions come to be categorized as “wrong” can be found under the specific circumstances that Leigh puts forth to the viewer in each instance, for which they must bear witness to any of Pansy’s emotionally charged outbursts. In looking at these moments from Pansy’s perspective, she would hardly ascribe to the label of an outburst coming from her even being an outburst. To her, it’s just simple communication. In returning to the assessment from others for what it is like to be around Pansy, there are two lenses I discovered as the movie was progressing in how one could view these collections of scenes. In a practical humanitarian sense, there’s a spite-filled demeanor that not only feels wholly unearned, but invites a deep discomfort and negativity that is inherently antithetical to what most human beings want out of life. From a more cynically indulged and cinematically elevated standpoint, every word spewing from Pansy’s mouth is splendidly cackling. There are so many examples to even arrive at an exact measure of instances where this arises in the film, but the times in which Pansy will verbally eviscerate any one who even dares look her way is a constant bright spot of tonal glee. Reminiscent of Jesse Armstrong’s work on Succession, the sonnets of true vexation penned by Leigh and conveyed through Jean-Baptiste offer some incredibly wry laughs. This humorous sentiment can at the same time exist alongside the nuance of how unfair it is that this is Pansy’s attitude not just towards strangers at the supermarket, but the family in her home.
Pansy resides in the suburbs of London with her husband Curtley (David Webber) and son Moses (Tuwaine Barrett). By the nature of regularly occupying the same space as Pansy, the duo of father and son will often act as a sounding board for her extensive tirades against whatever just so happens to irk her at a given time. In an extension of that dynamic, Pansy’s anger will also be aimed towards Curtley and Moses. Without trekking through the 20 years that preceded the film’s events, an assertion that is nonetheless insinuated is that this has been the case for a long time. With that in mind, as two people who have spent a great deal of time with Pansy, one can come to understand the outlook each of these men have on the matriarch of the family. That outlook being one of honest love for Pansy as a mom and as a spouse, but plagued with a forlorn resentment at what her words have done to that connection. And so in their designated roles of aimless son and world-weary father, Moses and Curtley have arrived at their own way of dealing with or rather maneuvering around Pansy’s default temperament. To differing degrees, it’s the action of silence.
Alongside the importance of Jean-Baptiste’s distinctive candor for whenever she raises her voice is the film’s use of complete stillness of sound. There are a few key moments in the movie that lightly invite the viewer to divert their attention to what it’s saying about the character when no one is speaking. Curtley and Moses are key examples of this, as they are two characters who, because of their lived experience with Pansy, don’t have a great deal to say in scenes opposite her. Comfortably in his early 20s, Moses is a grown adult in all legal respects, but the overall demeanor we see him express wouldn’t necessarily reinforce that fact on a behavioral level. So much of the energy surrounding him feels like that of a youth who has a tendency to speak softly. The mix of brewing exasperation and moroseness that Barrett imbues into the character is a proud feat not only on a performance level, but also for what it does in laying out the unintended side effects for what Pansy’s outlook on the world has had on her family. This behavior is even stronger in the case of Curtley, who has the undertones of someone who has been pummeled into submission. In tandem with these internal character developments are the times we see them away from Pansy. For as demure as Moses and Curtley can be, they still have a sense of personhood the same way that Chantelle, Aleisha, and Kayla do. In contrasting these characterizations against one another, there is another level to Hard Truths that reveals itself beautifully, and it’s the idea of grace.
The scene structure of the film utilizes a vignette-adjacent style to follow its supporting characters, but will still often come back to Pansy in the midst of various mundane situations. No matter the specifics of said situation, the feeling that she invokes towards complete strangers, as well as herself, remains the same. While Pansy reacts to nuisances with scorn, no other major character in the movie does. Part of what Leigh and editor Tania Reddin are conveying to the audience in any scene where someone other than Pansy is being affronted is that they have the ability to embrace grace and normalcy in the face of such a scenario. Every member of this family finds themselves in at least one situation that is meant to conjure feelings of inconvenience or disrespect, but no one has the instincts to go to places that Pansy does. There is space for emotional growth for these characters, or at the very least a sense of composure to not just attack. In an alternate version of this movie, this is the primary lesson that Pansy must learn before the credits roll, but Hard Truths is not that film. Instead, Leigh is much more interested in exploring why someone acts out in this way, and the way this is tackled is through the relationship between sisters.
There isn’t no one more capable of understanding Pansy and all of her psychological hang-ups than Chantelle. With the unfaltering emotional bond connecting them, Chantelle extends grace towards Pansy in the hopes that Pansy will finally address the immense baggage that has been dragging her further into the doldrums of anguish she finds herself in. In one of the movie’s most wrought scenes, we at last are allowed some substantive insight into Pansy’s psyche and an even greater degree of understanding for where those demons come from. Positioned as less of a reveal than may be implied, the exact crux that has been emotionally stunting Pansy for years on end stems from their now-deceased mother. Leigh’s excellent script sheds the exact amount of light needed for the viewer to know what they need to know about what Pansy’s relationship with her mother was like. Countering the inferred multilayered derision and animosity at the heart of that relationship, I couldn’t help but harken back to Secrets & Lies. With admittedly few other examples to draw from, I do feel safe in looking to his 1996 triumph as the central text for how to get the most out of his films, Hard Truths especially. Where family wins out at the end of the Secrets & Lies, an analogous end is arrived at in Hard Truths, but it isn’t so clear-cut as was the case with the former work. Hortense Cumberbatch and Pansy Deacon share very little as human beings, but what drives their in the journeys comes back to the idea of the family that was taken from us, or how we feel wronged by them. Pansy is too set in her way to arrive at the same place Hortense does. Instead, the ending we get is appropriately damning, bordering on cyclical. Pansy can deal with her trauma, but is not so inclined by film’s end to embrace actual change. In examining that fact, it could bring about a potential hindrance to the film in that there is arguably no arc to our main character. Speaking for myself, however, the performance from Jean-Baptiste is more than worth its weight in gold, and of equal or greater value to any hindrance that could be aimed at this film in that specific regard. The nuance of Baptiste’s approach is apparent for all to see, but that approach is not restricted by an overtly subtle presentation. She is beyond magnetic, and is theatrically poised, yet so unpredictable and almost punishing to watch. By the end of my screening at this year’s Chicago International Film Festival, there was no question I had just seen one of the best capital A Acting feats of the year. Bravo, Marianne!
Rating: High Side of Liked It
Hard Truths is currently playing in theaters
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