Mike Leigh’s Hard Truths is several things, but it is most obviously a family-centric drama that focuses on several related people in their middle class lives in London. At its centre is Pansy, played by Marianne Jean-Baptiste. She is a fraught, complex character that obsessed over cleanliness and acts with anger towards her quiet husband and socially isolated adult son. In public, she lashes out toward others, and at home, she relays tales of the same.
Pansy remains, overall, a sympathetic character. She is, on the face of it, the bad guy, lashing out and causing tension and unease for little to no reason. But Leigh’s film makes it obvious that there is trauma beneath the surface; there are reasons for her flawed character. The only one willing to try to understand Pansy is her sister, Chantelle, played by Michele Austin. Chantelle is, by comparison, bubbly and jovial, and uses her best efforts to heal her sibling.
Despite, or perhaps because of, its psychological depth, the film strikes a balance between comedy and tragedy. Pansy’s behaviour can be bizarre and unexpected, and can be quite humorous due to its juxtaposition with everyday scenarios. Smartly, however, the more we see of her actions, the more we as an audience become engaged with Pansy as a person and the more we become engaged with all the elements that make up a person’s psyche, whether these stories are explicitly told or not.
2024, Mike Leigh
7.0
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