Last week, I went to the Angelika Film Centre to see Hard Truths, Mike Leigh's 2024 British film starring Marianne Jean-Baptiste and Michele Austin as sisters in London, whose personalities greatly contrast. Pansy (Jean-Baptiste) is a woman who is struggling with anxiety and depression, and is angry all of the time, to an uncontrollable degree, looking for any excuse with her short temper to lecture or chastise someone about why they're wrong or how they've hurt or offended her. She yells at her meek plumber husband Curtley (David Webber), who is resigned to taking her verbal blows and doesn't argue or fight back with her. She yells at her son, Moses (Tuwaine Barrett), who she sees as a lazy layabout at 22, telling him not to go outside for walks or people will say he's "loitering with intent," and he stays quiet and keeps his headphones on to stay in his own world. And Pansy picks fights with everyone she comes across, arguing with salespeople, the dentist, random shoppers, everyone who she antagonizes and looks for an excuse to feel like the victim. She rants at animals and flowers, despising the pigeons in her backyard, and it's clear that her anger is unhealthy, and she isn't managing well with the grief of her mother's death, now five years past.
Chantelle (Austin), on the other hand, is a jovial, friendly hairdresser with two adult daughters, who jokes with her clients, teases her kids, who are both healthy and talk about having active social lives and busy careers, and who all live more full lives than the grief and sadness that hangs over Pansy's house.
Chantelle puts up with Pansy's complaining and temper, in a scene where she is trying to do her hair but Pansy keeps picking everyone apart and going on long-winded rants (especially in an earlier dinner table where the camera holds on Jean-Baptiste delivering long monologues criticizing everyone she comes across while her husband and son sit silently at their plates, practically dissociating in the moment), and Chantelle is more good-natured and still loves her sister, and is trying to get her to join her on Mother's Day to visit their mother's grave, which Pansy is hesitant to do for obvious reasons.
The film's trailer marketed it more as a comedy, with out-of-context moments of Pansy making fun of people (like calling a random woman an ostrich or questioning why a baby's clothes would have pockets), but it's much more of an intense drama, about a woman who is hurting so much that she lashes out at everyone, wants to just stay in bed and sleep (and whenever she is woken up, she rouses up like she's being attacked), and is sick of hating everything but can't stop. The film is an incredible character study about a person who rants a lot, but is unable to talk about what is really troubling her, because it's too sensitive and raw for her to address.
Bobby Finger in his Letterboxed review brought up a great point about how the film's characters will seem very honest, but will omit the "hard truths" from their interactions. As Pansy doesn't want to talk about her trauma and grief, Chantelle's two daughters will put on happy faces when talking to each other about their day, but leave out the less cheerful details. "What about every thought that hasn’t spewed from her mouth like acid? There’s so fucking much of it hidden beneath all of those hard, shouted truths. And if that weren’t enough (because maybe no one can do juxtaposition as elegantly as Mike Leigh), he gives us that scene of Chantelle’s daughters, the two brightest lights in the whole movie, discussing their days with each other and leaving out all the dreariness… keeping the painful details from each other while somehow maintaining something honest and real." It's an astute point about how excellent Leigh is at writing realistic characters who are complex and messy and interesting.
The film takes a slower pace in the second half, as the characters are sitting more with their grief, and Pansy is exhausted by her anger and is just silent and sad. Her character hasn't been diagnosed, but it's possible she may have manic-depressive disorder, as it fits with her symptoms, but the film doesn't go into those questions. It leaves unanswered questions, like just stepping into someone's life and not having everything fixed or wrapped up by the end, and while it is an emotional heavyweight of a film to watch, I thought it was fantastic, and incredibly relatable for anyone who has felt immense grief and anger at the same time.
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