Some people bring happiness and positivity to the world, brightening the lives of everyone around them, and others make flowers wither and milk curdle wherever they go. As Pansy, Marianne Jean-Baptiste embodies the latter type in “Hard Truths,” reuniting with “Secrets and Lies” director Mike Leigh in her richest character ever—not economically, of course, though we’d all be millionaires if we had five cents for every biting complaint that came out of Pansy’s lips.
Coming more than fifty years after Lee’s first film, Dark Moments , “Hard Truths” caps a career of hard-hitting portraits of working-class British life. Frankly, that vague title seems more fitting for his body of work than his latest (but hopefully not his last) film. The film marks a return to intimate realism after the grand ambition of several relatively expansive historical films—“Topsy-Turvy,” “Vera Drake,” “Mr. Turner,” “Peterloo”—and it offers a hint of plot to accompany its thorny but justified microcosm of a not-so-pleasant wife and mother.
From the moment Pansy wakes up (often with a terrified voice), the world seems to be coming at her. People in her path, beware: Pansy picks fights with almost everyone she encounters, from a well-meaning cashier to a wary dental hygienist. She hurls insults at complete strangers, trying to assess them in the moment before she unleashes them (most of which are hilarious, as if she were writing for “Veep” or one of Armando Iannucci’s other shows). Pansy’s misanthropy can be charmingly funny, though it’s clear that laughing at such a person on screen is a lot easier than laughing at them in person.
“You don’t know my pain,” she cries. “You don’t know my pain!” While that might be enough to make most people mind their own business, Lee digs deeper. Driven by a genuine, nonjudgmental interest in what drives people, the director seeks to understand such a person, entrusting Jean-Baptiste with illuminating the character in the same way he tasked Sally Hawkins with decoding Poppy in “Happy-Go-Lucky.” Pansy and Poppy could be two sides of the same coin: one seems doomed to a lifetime of misery, the other an incorrigible optimist, but both are infectious dispositions best experienced in moderation.
In both cases, Lee asks the audience to spend an uncomfortable amount of time in his characters’ shoes, relying on empathy to illuminate such extremes. What would life be like with such people, as their families do? Pansy’s partner, Curtly (David Webber), is surprisingly able to withstand the near-constant criticism. Her son, Moses (Twyne Barrett), has it worse. Overweight and unmotivated, he spends his days playing video games and dreading her outright disapproval.
In another kind of movie, Moses might go to a schoolyard to start a shooting, and the audience would know where that impulse came from. But Lee has a less straightforward sense of cause and effect. His films aren’t just about neat little lines. They start with the actors, who describe to Lee one or more people they know in the real world. From this, Lee defines the characters, then directs his group to interact with each other, using such improvisations to shape the script.
In “Hard Truths,” Lee was keen to work again with Jean-Baptiste, developing a series of combative encounters over several days, rather than a conventional plot. What drives her? It can’t be just parenting, as her sweet sister Chantelle (Michelle Austin) radiates a very different energy. She sings, smiles, and dances with her two adult daughters (Annie Nelson and Sophia Brown) in the privacy of their living room—a stark contrast to Pansy, whose passivity is a form of narcissism. While Pansy makes everything about herself, Lee takes a slightly different approach, reaching out to the other characters, only to compare how they behave in her absence.
Pansy may be annoying, but they love her anyway, as only family can. She has been trained to expect the worst. For some, this might be a way to protect themselves from disappointment, yet Pansy always manages to feel let down or offended by her presence. In some cases, she is right—cops have a history of harassing black citizens, and someone so suspicious of others is unlikely to be a fraud—but Lee and Jean-Baptiste illustrate the toll that such toxicity takes on her.
At times, it can seem as if Pansy is holding her breath, as if resentment is a lifeline. It might be easier to accept the “harsh truths” if Lee believed her problems could be cured with a purge, but of course, the rot is there at the heart of her character. Jean-Baptiste plays the role mercilessly: Pansy lashes out at every turn when the unhappiness clearly comes from within. Mother’s Day is approaching, and Chantelle begs her sister to accompany her to the cemetery, where they can lay flowers on their mother’s grave. Pansy wails about how no one brings her flowers. What would change if they did?
Lee’s films can seem scattered and disorganized upon first viewing, and “Hard Truths” is no different. But there is a profound poetry to every scene. Although Pansy’s outlook on life can be difficult to accept, the simple act of observing her can change how we see the world. Choosing to spend time with someone like Pansy can feel like soaking one’s soul in salt and vinegar, when in fact it is a cathartic experience: a chance to get to know the grouch, or to get to know him in ourselves.
