Marianne Jean-Baptiste is Oscar-worthy in Mike Leigh’s ‘captivating’ new film

Lee says his stunning new drama depicts “vibrant, flawed but good people” and stars Marianne Jean-Baptiste in what he says is “surely one of the best performances of the year.”

The leading lady of Mike Leigh’s fantastic new film is a living pain, especially for herself. Pansy, played with intense emotion by Marianne Jean-Baptiste, is constantly angry, yelling at everyone from her husband and adult son to the store clerk. Hard Truths has very little plot, but it does have one. Pansy starts out as a spiteful woman, but her grief, fear for her life, and sense of being persecuted by the world become heartbreaking. Jean-Baptiste is even better in this role than she was in Leigh’s Secrets and Lies (1996), where she played an adopted daughter searching for her mother, a quietly powerful performance that earned her an Oscar nomination. Here she brings both dynamism and understanding to a most prickly character, in what will surely be one of the best performances of the year.

Underrated after two historical films Peterloo (2018) And Dazzling Mr. Turner In (2014), Lee, set in the present day, draws us into the lives of ordinary people as usual. Pansy lives in a modest but comfortable house with her husband Kirtley (David Weber), who runs a small plumbing company, and their son Moses (Twain Barrett), who rarely leaves his room. Moses clearly has emotional problems facing the world, while Pansy considers him lazy, exclaiming, “Have you no dreams, no hopes?” “Hope and Dreams” could have been the title of any of Lee’s earlier gentler films; think Happy-Go-Lucky or High Hopes. But true to the title, “Hard Truths” takes a reverse angle on life, drawing us into Pansy’s anguished reality. She is highly depressed, spends most of the day in bed, and seems to be a hypochondriac. Her anger does not abate throughout the film, but we gradually see that it is a symptom of her emotional anguish.

Lee’s strategy of immersing the audience in the world of his characters and hinting at new facts and background without preamble or explanation helps his films feel authentic. He seems to have a magical ability to enchant the everyday, even creating emotional drama out of a scene in which Kirtley and his assistant struggle to carry a heavy claw-foot bathtub up a flight of stairs.

Michelle Austin gives a natural and moving performance as Pansy’s sister, hairdresser Chantelle, who has a laughing and loving relationship with her two grown daughters. Chantelle patiently tries to help her sister, gently encouraging her to visit the grave on the anniversary of their mother’s death, and then invites Pansy’s family over to her home. But at Chantelle’s house, Pansy sits in silence and refuses to take off her coat. Austin movingly expresses Chantelle’s sadness and helplessness in the situation. She and her daughters also provide some background on Pansy’s family. One of the daughters pretends that a sales pitch at work went well, when in fact the opposite is true, a typical attempt to save face. But Pansy refuses to acknowledge that she and Moses need help, denying reality in a more serious and damaging way. Kurtley is the calming presence in the house, clearly exhausted by her situation. Webber plays him movingly, but he’s a bit underdeveloped among the major characters.

Lee includes some witty moments that keep the film from being depressing. At the clinic, Pansy is furious about being seen by a different doctor instead of her usual one, and is so upset that the doctor asks, “Are you OK?” Pansy replies, “No, I’m not OK. I’m in the hospital!” And she has a point.

The moments when Pansy does acknowledge her own emotional instability are even more painful to watch. After berating a sales clerk for no apparent reason, she storms out of the furniture store and sits in her car catching her breath. The pained look on Jean-Baptiste’s face tells us she knows she’s not OK. “I’m so scared,” she confides to her sister, standing at her mother’s grave. But the well-meaning people around her don’t know what to do.

Although the family featured in The Hard Truth is black, Lee denies the notion that, as a white man, he was reluctant to portray the characters’ inner lives. Vanity Fair He pointed to the many films, including period dramas, that portray experiences unrelated to his own. “It’s just about human beings. The good and the bad in all of us,” he said. He and his cast show us vivid, flawed but good people in a wonderful movie full of heart and compassion.