In one of Mike Leigh’s best films, Happy-Go-Lucky (2008), Eddie Marsan has an emotional breakdown of anger and resentment towards one of the most annoying, happiest characters you’ll see in a film. He lashes out and projects his insecurities and disturbed attitudes onto a woman whose only sin is living a life of bliss and positivity. It’s a heartbreaking moment for a pathetic person with no self-awareness, showing a deeply broken soul whose fragile peace is shattered by someone’s casual carefree attitude towards the harsh realities of being an adult.
Hurt people hurt others. It’s the cinematic language of Leigh’s newest drama, Hard Truths (2024). Starring Marianne Jean-Baptiste as one of cinema’s most potent, misanthropic characters in recent memory, who brings to life Pansy—a deeply problematic, devilishly-hilarious woman who has nothing but wicked hatred for her family, community, and the world, and as the film delves further, maybe herself. It’s the best performance of her career, and possibly, the year.
“Why on Earth would I want to spend time with someone so hateful?” you may respond. Part of Leigh’s magic is not sympathizing or empathizing with a contemptible person, but humanizing her. Much like Sally Hawkins’ Poppy in Happy-Go-Lucky, Leigh’s amazing ability to create fully realized characters lies in his humanist approach.
In Hard Truths, Leigh is not interested in figuring out who they are or why they act but in presenting the daily humdrum of their unexciting lives and allowing their actions to dictate the narrative; no obvious forms of contrition or heightened drama influence the plot. This is tough and indeed, there will be people who will find it difficult to watch and wonder where it’s going (much like the Happy-Go-Lucky). Yet, the destination is not always the point in a Mike Leigh film, it’s about the journey–a slice-of-life realism that allows you to live in a person’s skewed reality and how their actions influence the behaviors around them.
Pansy lives in a quiet suburb of London. It’s certainly not quiet in her household, as she lacerates insults and hurls disdain toward her adult son, Moses (Tuwaine Barrett), and her workman husband, Curtley (David Webber). They don’t lash out when she criticizes their cleanliness, casual behaviors, and lifestyles, but nod, walk away, and resume their activity. It’s not a fun life. No one is safe from Pansy’s rage.
The only person who seems to tolerate Pansy is her vibrant, fun-loving sister, Chantelle (Michele Austin), who can make passable conversation and respond with a witty comeback to Pansy’s remarks. The film follows the lives of Leigh’s characters, particularly the way Pansy and Chantelle go about their lives. Pansy’s life is filled with cold, clinical takedowns and lifeless decorum while Chantelle’s is filled with laughter, color, and energy, buoyed by her two adult daughters. Leigh’s film culminates in a trip to their mother’s grave, when all of Pansy’s laugh-out-loud, acerbic wit and jokes drop and Chantelle learns more how deeply broken and destroyed her sister is.
“Why can’t you enjoy life?” Chantelle pleads with her sister, and Pansy responds, “I don’t know.” Leigh isn’t interested in why Pansy can’t enjoy living, but if there’s anything more that can be done to spark hope in such a miserable hopeless person, it’s certainly not obvious as the film progresses. “I just want it to all stop,” an exhausted and emotionally worn-out Pansy pleads.
Marianne Jean Baptiste, a returning actor from Leigh’s Secrets Lies (1996), gives the seismic performance that will reverberate across 2024. In every scene, you’re either laughing at her absurd, beautifully written, and caustically delivered insults or left in absolute silence at such a morosely-depressed person, whose only coping mechanism is spewing venom. Every frame that Baptiste occupies affirms the complex maneuvering trick that a performer, only of her caliber, could execute.
Portraying a character this fraught is not easy, yet Baptiste makes it effortless by how much her distinct face is subsumed by anger; her eyes vacant of any life; her voice raised by an octave when she’s blazing with impassioned anger; and her sullen looks of depleted life. If the world was the Titanic, she is the iceberg, formidable in strength and durability, yet chipped away on the edges as life passes. Baptiste is incredible.
Austin is marvelous as the only tether to humanity Pansy can have (and rely on). While many around her give up (rightfully so), resigning themselves that there’s no way to help her, Chantelle’s empathy offers a glimpse of a troubled childhood where Pansy didn’t have the fair shake her sister did. Despite Chantelle’s difficulties, she will never give up on Pansy. Her effervescent laughter as she talks shop at her salon job shows that she is someone who’s been on everyone’s shoulder and takes it with ease and warmth. It’s a lovely contrast and offers some morsel of hope Pansy can have in a world she has no desire to participate in.
In a near-wordless role, Barret is a revelation. Built to a large stature that towers over his mom, every insult hurled at him reduces him to size, and yet, he never wavers in protecting his wellness. He picks his battles when he can, but often at the expense of being closed off from the world unless others try to break down his mental barrier. Moses has built his wall to fend off his mother’s hatred and the potential warmth the world could offer.
Yet, he is capable of showing vulnerability when he means to, in one of the most genuinely heartfelt scenes of the film–after every abuse and torment he’s endured he expresses a form of love to Pansy that could only exist in a Mike Leigh film. It’s one of my favorite surprise performances of the year and ignites a burning desire to see Tuwaine Barrett in more projects.
The ending may leave more unanswered questions than swift resolutions, but that’s the tragedy of life. Resolutions are never present in an obvious way, and conflicts simply don’t end. Pansy’s battle with herself may never be over, yet the narrative surrounding her isolation adds layers to the film’s emotional impact. Her family may never find comfort in piercing through Pansy’s armor, yet their armor and self-respect become more reinforced by reckoning with one of life’s ardent terrorizers.
Leigh chooses not to pass judgment because it would defeat the purpose of drawing the unvarnished stark reality of visceral self-loath bleeding into antipathy towards others. And the miraculous nature of organic mercy to those broken souls. Or pity if you were to ask Pansy.
Review Courtesy of Amritpal Rai
Image Courtesy of Film Lincoln Center via Bleeker Street