Hard Truths. 2024. UK/Spain. Written and directed by Mike Leigh. With Jo Martin, Marianna Jean-Baptiste, Michele Austin. DCP courtesy Bleecker Street. 97 min.
Nearly 30 years after Marianne Jean-Baptiste vaulted to critical acclaim as an introspective optometrist-turned-genealogist in Mike Leigh’s Secrets & Lies, she returns in Hard Truths, this time with a centrifugal performance. Jean-Baptiste is Pansy Deacon, a severely disgruntled, caustic, middle-aged homemaker living on the outskirts of London. Pansy is everything her sister, Chantelle (a radiant Michele Austin), is not. Where Chantelle showers her daughters with affection and hangs on their every word, Pansy scolds her unwitting son about dog-walkers and mocks her husband’s gardening prowess. Though Pansy is alien to her family, Leigh knows her all too well. He infuses her most catastrophically self-effacing moments with a deep well of compassion that surges from the remarkable generosity her family affords her. But when even the simplest and most obvious acts of reciprocity are asked of Pansy, can she deliver? The characteristic austerity of Leigh’s direction ensures that each character is in charge of their own story in Hard Truths, and watching them make their choices comes with all the pain, joy, and confusion of watching your own loved ones.