We haven’t seen a new film from Mike Leigh since 2018’s historical drama Peterloo, and that one didn’t make much of a splash. But the Another Year and Vera Drake director is finally back with Hard Truths, a reunion with Marianne Jean-Baptiste, star of his acclaimed 1996 film Secrets & Lies.
Premiering this week at the Toronto Film Festival, Hard Truths stars Jean-Baptiste as Pansy, a woman who always ready to pick a fight at the drop of a hat. She’ll take on anyone, from strangers to her closest family members, but true to Mike Leigh form, there’s something else going on with Pansy and those layers will be peeled back over the course of the film.
Based on this footage, it seems like Leigh, who also wrote the script, is doing something similar to his acclaimed dramedy Happy-Go-Lucky, but from a different angle. That film earned Leigh an Oscar nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay, while star Sally Hawkins received some of the greatest reviews of her career.
Here’s the synopsis: Hypersensitive to the slightest possible offence and ever ready to fly off the handle, Pansy (Jean-Baptiste) does not ingratiate. She criticizes her husband Curtley (David Webber) and their adult son Moses (Tuwaine Barrett) so relentlessly that neither bother to argue with her. She picks fights with strangers and sales clerks and enumerates the world’s countless flaws to anyone who will listen, most especially her cheerful sister Chantal (Michele Austin), who might be the only person still capable of sympathizing with her. As the film peels back Pansy’s pain and the daily fallout left in its wake, we wonder if a breaking point will come for the family.
Bleecker Street will release Hard Truths in theaters on January 10th 2025.
