Hard Truths review: Marianne Jean-Baptiste's Oscar snub is criminal
The new film from Mike Leigh proves the 81 year-old is still a master of British realist cinema.
Simon Mein Copyright Thin Man Films Ltd
- James Mottram
★★★★☆
Hard Truths is in cinemas from Friday 31 January. Add it to your watchlist
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The opening scene of Mike Leigh’s latest film Hard Truths sets the tone for this telling familial drama. Pansy (Marianne Jean-Baptiste) is asleep in her bed, a place she will spend increasingly more time in across the film, when she suddenly awakes in fright. Is it a nightmare? Or simply the anxiety of someone who is increasingly struggling with her mental health?
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As shown by this poignant character study – the sort that Leigh excels at – it’s very much the latter. Set in contemporary London – the COVID-19 pandemic is briefly alluded to – Hard Truths is Leigh’s first modern-day movie since 2010’s Another Year.
Since then, he’s been on an historical journey with his painterly biopic Mr Turner (2014) and Peterloo (2018), an account of the 1819 Peterloo Massacre that took place in Manchester. As good as those films were – in particular the exquisite Mr Turner – there is something heartening about Leigh returning to terrain that is more familiar.
Marianne with Secrets & Lies colleagues Brenda Blethyn and Mike Leigh Getty
Ever since his 1971 debut Bleak Moments, his finest work has seen him explore the minutia of everyday life in Britain, and Hard Truths is no different. While this is his first film with a predominantly Black cast, this study of an extended family is right in his wheelhouse.
Once again, it contains a stellar performance – with Jean-Baptiste on outstanding form as Pansy, a woman who is increasingly angry with the world. On the surface, Pansy has little to complain about. She lives with her husband Curtley (David Webber), a plumber, and their grown-up son Moses (Tuwaine Barrett), in a well-appointed suburban house. But Pansy’s short fuse is ever ready to burn.
In a car park, she faces off with a fellow driver in an outrageous moment of road rage. At home, meanwhile, she finds little solace. Curtley is quiet, barely uttering a word, perhaps beaten down by his wife’s behaviour. The overweight Moses stays in his room or mooches around town, tormented by other lads.
Michele Austin and Marianne Jean-Baptiste in Hard Truths. Studio Canal
It doesn’t help that Pansy has a sister Chantelle (Michele Austin), who greets life with a smile. Living with her two daughters (Ani Nelson and Sophia Brown), who both are making something of themselves in life, Chantelle works as a hairdresser in a local salon.
She’s forever looking out for her difficult sister, despite Pansy’s negative attitude (quite literally, she is the flip side to Poppy, the upbeat character played by Sally Hawkins in Leigh’s 2008 film Happy-Go-Lucky).
Marianne Jean-Baptiste as Pansy and Michele Austin as Chantelle in Hard Truths Simon Mein Copyright Thin Man Films Ltd
Things come to a head on Mother’s Day, when Michele wants Pansy to join her for a visit to their late mother’s grave. As Leigh and his cast carefully reveal, Pansy’s issues are deep-rooted in childhood.
As "unlikeable" as Pansy is, we come to feel for her – thanks to Jean-Baptiste’s greatly empathetic performance, one that is full of guile. Her first film with Leigh since the award-winning 1995 movie Secrets & Lies, it’s already seen her win the Best Lead Performance at the British Independent Film Awards and be nominated for a BAFTA for Best Actress. Her lack of an Oscar nomination is criminal.
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Shot by Leigh’s long-serving cinematographer Dick Pope, who passed away in late 2024, making this their final collaboration, Hard Truths is a finely-etched look at sisterhood, marriage and mental health. There are overly familiar elements and characters – Moses, in particular, feels like James Corden’s son in 2002’s All or Nothing, while Pansy’s anger (mis)management could see her alongside David Thewlis's Johnny in Naked (1993).
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But this is still a drama blessed with Leigh’s mesmeric touch; few directors can do what he does, and Hard Truths shows the 81 year-old is still a master of the British realist cinema.
Authors
James Mottram
James Mottram is a London-based film critic, journalist, and author.
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