Everyone who has seen "Hard Truths" is not happy that Marianne Jean-Baptiste was not nominated for an Academy Award for her performance. Personally, I am also pretty miffed that "Hard Truths" wasn't a contender for Best Picture either. This is Mike Leigh's latest film, and if you're not familiar with Mike Leigh, he's a British director who has been making excellent domestic dramas about ordinary British people for decades. One of his earlier films, "Secrets & Lies," is where I first saw Marianne Jean-Baptiste onscreen, incidentally. That one was nominated for Best Picture, and Jean-Baptiste got a Supporting Actress nomination, way back in 1997.
"Hard Truths" is about a woman named Pansy Deacon (Jean-Baptiste). I think everyone has encountered a Pansy at some point in their lives - a bitter, angry, paranoid person who instinctively lashes out at everyone around them, and is altogether very unpleasant to be around. "Hard Truths" follows Pansy through a brief period of her life leading up to Mother's Day. We meet Pansy's husband Curtley (David Webber), and adult son Moses (Tuwaine Barrett). We meet her younger sister Chantelle (Michele Austin), a hairdresser with a much nicer personality and two grown daughters (Ani Nelson, Sophia Brown) of her own. We learn that Pansy and Chantelle's mother passed away a few years ago, and perhaps this has led to Pansy having to deal with some uncomfortable emotions.
It's difficult to say exactly what is wrong with Pansy. She seems to be perpetually in a bad mood, and stuck in a cycle of being hostile to and critical of everyone she meets. Her rude, demanding rants border on the comical at first, because they're so unfiltered and over-the-top. However, Pansy also cleans compulsively, can't seem to stand being outside, and tends to wake up screaming from bad dreams. She's anxious and scared and in pain from various ailments that haven't been properly treated, but refuses to ask for anyone's help. Instead, she stubbornly pushes back against anything that resembles concern. How much control she has over her own behavior is uncertain, but she cares very much about being in control. Marianne Jean-Baptiste does an incredible job of keeping Pansy sympathetic while simultaneously being utterly detestable. And the whole way through, she's very very watchable.
"Hard Truths" also examines the people who have been the most impacted by Pansy's behavior, specifically her hardworking husband and directionless son. Both seem numb to Pansy's constant verbal abuse, but eventually we do get a sense of what's going on with the two of them under the surface. David Webber is wonderful at getting across how Curtley really feels about his wife and their toxic dynamic while hardly saying a word. His silences say just as much as her deluge of dialogue. Then there's Chantelle - the only person who Pansy seems willing to be civil with, and is able to talk to with something like honesty. Reading between the lines, she provides the most likely answers as to why Pansy's family has been reluctant to abandon her to her own misery.
Leigh also pointedly includes scenes of other characters biting their tongues in other daily interactions - Chantelle's daughters navigating microaggressions at work, and Moses being bullied - putting Pansy's behavior into context and suggesting that her hostility didn't come from nowhere. The POV shifts to focus on different family members throughout the film, giving us glimpses of each of their private worlds, and their moments of isolation and loneliness between the bigger scenes where they come together. Despite all the unhappiness on display, I found "Hard Truths" one of Mike Leigh's more uplifting films. Nothing is anywhere close to fixed or resolved in the end, but we do close out on a hopeful note.
And I hope Mike Leigh keeps making films for as long as he can, and I hope that Marianne Jean-Baptiste gets more chances in the future to deliver performances like this one.
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