Hard Truths (2024)

4 Stars (out of 4)

Pansy Division

By Jeffrey M. Anderson

Mike Leigh reunites with performer Marianne Jean-Baptiste, who received an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress for her role in Leigh's Secrets and Lies (1996), a mere twenty-eight years prior. She gives a furious, powerhouse performance in a role that many have called the flip side of Sally Hawkins's "Poppy" in Leigh's Happy-Go-Lucky (2008). She's Pansy, a deeply depressed London woman who has extremely high expectations for the world, is constantly disappointed, and reacts with unbridled rage. Her husband Curtley (David Webber) and son Moses (Tuwaine Barrett) are mere shells of men, their spirits likely crushed over the years by Pansy's abuse. Her sister Chantelle (Michele Austin), a hairdresser and a more upbeat woman, hasn't yet given up on Pansy and tries to speak to her during their hairdressing sessions (free of charge for Pansy, which still doesn't stop her complaining). Chantelle wants to take Pansy to visit their mother's grave, and this event becomes the catalyst for some soul-searching, although there are no easy answers for this kind of pain. Miraculously, even though she's not someone you'd want to be around in real life, Leigh and Jean-Baptiste make Pansy understandably human, with history and dimension, and Jean-Baptiste plays her like a boiling kettle that's unable to whistle; all it can do is rattle.