Film review: ‘HARD TRUTHS’ by Nick Gardener from ‘Built For Speed’
For over 50 years British auteur Mike Leigh has been powerfully depicting the lives of disaffected people and those who don’t fit society’s prescribed mould. Who could forget Lesley Manville as the desperately lonely outsider in Leigh’s brilliant Another Year. His films are uniquely insightful about the human condition but often difficult to watch.
The title of Leigh’s latest film, Hard Truths (which screens at the British Film Festival) is an early warning that we’re in for some serious misery. The director’s approach to the troubled lives of his characters in this film will prove confrontingly real and for many identifiable but (appropriately) infuriating and frustrating as the path toward some sort of happiness is constantly thwarted.
The film explores the disturbing currents beneath the lives of superficially stable middle class black British family. Marianne Jean-Baptiste plays a woman named Pansy who lives a weirdly ordered existence in her extremely clean almost sterile home with her husband Curtley (David Webber) and large but extremely taciturn son Moses (Tuwaine Barrett). Pansy is one of the most aggressively miserable people we’ve ever witnessed in a film as she grizzles relentlessly and launches into outrageous tirades about everything she encounters. She’s often obnoxiously insulting as she berates innocent shop assistants and lashes out at those who try to help her including her warm-hearted sister Chantelle (Michele Austin), her doctor and her dentist. At times, she’s hilariously intolerant of the most trivial things but ultimately she’s a sad figure as her outbursts are revealed to be the product of crippling anxiety, self-doubt and probably a personality disorder. Our emotional response to her bounces around like a pinball as we alternately want someone to scream at her then five seconds later to hold and protect her. Jean-Baptiste is phenomenal in bringing nuance and compassion to such a confronting and often dislikeable character.
The film is very much focused on her which means some of the other characters feel a little underdone. We see fragments of their lives and a few personal dramas, usually at work but they’re like satellites around the character of Pansy. It could be argued that this is the film’s point, that her personality issues completely overwhelm their lives but it feels as if we should learn more about them. The only exception is Michelle Austin as the stable, gregarious and empathetic Chantelle. She’s given more screen time than the other supporting characters and her warm, understanding personality is an emotional oasis in an often grim film.
Hard Truths is very much about the inability to find a resolution in life which means it constantly tempts but denies the audience’s desire to see characters undergo a life changing catharsis. We desperately yearn for Pansy to find some happiness, for Curtley to speak up and challenge her or at least show he understands she’s in pain and for the big, formidable but gentle Moses to fight back against obnoxious local bullies. Leigh, however, seems determined to show that life never works out so satisfyingly.
Those who want traditional narrative structure, emotional release and closure in films will be frustrated with Hard Truths and may feel that this film ends much too abruptly. Those who want some part of cinema to capture unvarnished the painful struggle of everyday life, however, will be rivetted.
Nick’s rating: ***1/2
Genre: Drama.
Classification: CTC.
Director(s): Mike Leigh.
Release date: 6th Nov 2024 (at British Film Festival).
Running time: 97 mins.
Reviewer: Nick Gardener can be heard on “Built For Speed” every Friday night from 8-10pm on 88.3 Southern FM.