Fears, trauma, and family relationships come into focus in Mike Leigh’s existential drama, Hard Truths. The film examines the human condition as the characters struggle and survive in a post-pandemic world. Hard Truths will make you laugh and cry, possibly at the same time.
by Gill Pringle
A true original, it’s almost comical to imagine a version of British director Mike Leigh where he went to Hollywood.
Apart from his historical dramas, Leigh’s films have always been celebrations of ordinary British folk with ordinary problems, “kitchen sink dramas” as they have sometimes been called. His latest film, Hard Truths – competing in the San Sebastian Film Festival’s Official Selection – is no different.
Set in London, it explores family relationships in a post-pandemic world — namely, housewife Pansy, played by Marianne Jean-Baptiste, an unhappy, angry woman. Agoraphobic, hypochondriac and paranoid about animals, birds, insects, plants and flowers, she is confrontational with everyone, especially her plumber husband, Curtley (David Webber) and their stay-at-home unemployed adult son, Moses (Tuwaine Barrett).
“You couldn’t make a film like Hard Truths without the most fantastic, brilliant actors. All the actors that I work with are character actors. They’re actors who don’t just play themselves, don’t just perform their own narcissism. They actually are really good and passionate about making characters that are like real people out there in the street,” says the 81-year-old director, who was in feisty form at San Sebastian, the first time he has ever competed at this elegant festival.
Having previously directed Marianne Jean-Baptiste to a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination for her role in his 1996 film Secrets & Lies, he says of their latest collaboration, “We develop the character together, but if I started from the premise of the idea of the kind of person that Pansy is, and I found an actress who was like Pansy, it would be a nightmare, and we’d never make the film.
“But the thing is, that Marianne has got a great sense of humour and is a very generous, open, and passionate person who is able to create somebody like Pansy with total accuracy – but she is not Pansy.
White, president of Mystic Seaport Museum. “This is not an exhibition of the sea, but Turner represents for so many the most sublime representation of that feeling in art, and this remarkable exhibition is a unique opportunity to step into his world and view in this country some of the riches he left his nation upon his death.”