Hard Truths (now streaming on Paramount+) lasts 97 minutes, and I don’t think we’d survive if it was 98. I know – hyperbole. But the film, from inimitable British director Mike Leigh, is about a walking, talking hyperbole played by Marianne Jean-Baptiste in one of the most unforgettable performances you may ever see. Her character, the deeply, comically ironically named Pansy, is a hall-of-fame misanthrope whose vitriolic tirades are so slashingly thorough, you almost expect her to climb out of the screen and hurl insults at you with your lazy ass on the couch with your mouth hanging open in shock and amazement at this woman and her nuclear inscrutability. Insane to me is how Jean-Baptiste didn’t earn an Oscar nod for the role, although praise came from a more worthy source in John Waters, who dubbed the film and performance “a wretched experience I’ll cherish forever.” Couldn’t have said it better myself.
The Gist: If you think it’s hard to spend 97 minutes with Pansy, imagine if you were her husband or son. Curtley’s (David Webber) dead expression and Moses’ (Tuwaine Barrett) inability to lift his chin say it all. They live in a London home rendered disturbingly minimalist and spic-and-span by Pansy’s apparent OCD – drop a crumb on a countertop or track in a flake of dirt from outside and you risk being verbally crucified, perhaps only because actual physical crucifixion would just give her another mess to clean up. And ye gods, don’t be a furniture salesperson, random shopper in line behind her at the grocer or, ulp, her dentist, lest a single comment, gentle poke from a dental probe or even a mere glance trigger a tirade. Pansy has crafted a reality in her mind, where every molecule of the world is an affront to her, whether it’s a speck of dust, a fox in the backyard or a person asking her if she’s going to vacate a parking space. She sits quietly in her car, staring into the middle-distance, perhaps fighting the urge to succumb to self-realization; when a man who’s been circling the lot for a spot asks if she’s staying or going, it turns into this: “Your balls are so backed up, you’ve got sperm in your brain!”, she screeches.
Then again, there’s also a lingering worry that Pansy sits in her car thinking about doing something worse, possibly to herself. That’s when she stops being a comic character and veers toward something potentially tragic. We do get regular breaks from the towering cumulonimbus that could drop a funnel cloud at any moment: We meet Pansy’s sister Chantelle (Michele Austin), a sweetheart of a hairdresser who banters playfully with clients. She’s a single mother to two upbeat adult daughters, Kayla (Ani Nelson) and Aleisha (Sophia Brown), and while we see both endure difficult days at their jobs, they spin everything positive; their apartment is full of plants and flowers and silliness and joy and it’s the atmospheric opposite of Pansy’s austere life. Compare that to the begrudging misery of the home Pansy has built: Curtley, a self-employed contractor, quietly tolerates the empty chatter of his employee as they work plumbing gigs, then comes home to either deadly silence or a cobra spitting venom. Moses, a gentle giant of a 22-year-old who’s clearly emotionally malnourished and depressed, either sits in his cluttered room (also an affront to his mother) reading a children’s book, or walks through the city accompanied only by his headphones.
So what happened that two sisters could emerge from the same home with such brutally contrasting dispositions? Lean in and read the inferences of the physical and verbal performances here, and you might find some clues. Leigh devises a simple focal point for the plot: Chantelle cajoles a reluctant Pansy to visit their late mother’s grave on Mother’s Day. Eventually, a bouquet of flowers – notably, something that was once alive and is now dead, cut down at the height of its beauty – becomes a heavily symbolic prop notable for how Pansy, Curtley and Moses handle it. Take care to realize that Pansy isn’t a psychopath, for she has moments when she shows flashes of self-awareness, e.g., when she says, “I’m a sick woman.” But this curt observation, intended to elicit unearned sympathy, only grazes the surface, for she only notes the symptoms – migraines, anxiety, digestive issues, nightmares – and not the cause, which she may be too terrified to acknowledge.
What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: In 2008, Leigh directed Happy-Go-Lucky, starring Sally Hawkins as an irrepressible optimist (who very amusingly drives her irascible driving instructor, played by Eddie Marsan, wildly mad), and Hard Truths is its foil – all the way down to the ridiculously shortsighted Oscar snub, because Hawkins’ has been one of the most memorable performances in the 17 years since, and I suspect Jean-Baptiste’s will occupy the memory similarly. Leigh has to be doing this on purpose, no?
Performance Worth Watching: Again, and I paraphrase: One of the most memorable performances in years. Jean-Baptiste is so profoundly, aggressively unpleasant, it probably chafed the delicate sensibilities of Academy members for being too committed, too good for mere Oscar consideration. I spent an hour-and-a-half hearing Pansy air her grievances, and this is mine.
Memorable Dialogue: Pansy blurts out an incisive three-word truth when the sisters visit their mother’s grave:
Chantelle: Why can’t you enjoy life?
Pansy: I DON’T KNOW!
Sex and Skin: None.
Our Take: All this isn’t to say Jean-Baptiste shows no nuance or dynamic in her characterization of Pansy – you’ll never forget the film’s centerpiece scene of unsettling silence that’s ultimately more destructive than any of Pansy’s most hilariously petty, personal, hateful insults. Hard Truths is a very funny movie until it’s very much not, and whether it’s at all a realistic portrayal of a seemingly terminally depressed human being is beside the point. Leigh pushes past the relative softball simplicities of numerous recent cinematic depictions of mental illness into something nearly transcendently tragicomic. All those other films depicting redemptive characters with psychological troubles and stumping for audience empathy and enlightenment become a rolling ball of well-meaning thematic mush in comparison to Hard Truths, which bullseyes throw-your-hands-in-the-air exasperation in response to those who point the finger of blame at everything and everyone else in the world without considering their own role in all this – with all this open for interpretation, ranging from what’s inside a home to the state of a nation to the whole of reality itself.
Mind you, Pansy isn’t without redeeming qualities, although it’s clear her pragmatism and finely honed bullshit detector have taken over and poisoned her outlook on life. Compare that to Chantelle’s daughters, who endure dismissive or passive-aggressive bosses, then spin positive, and maybe even fib a little, when asked how work is going; is this a healthy glass-half-full philosophy or subtle delusion? But Pansy’s inability to understand why Chantelle would speak to their dead mother’s grave illustrates how she’s unwilling to process her emotions in a constructive manner. And I hesitate to use a phrase like “process her emotions” in the context of a movie that seems uninterested in, and possibly repulsed by, the type of trendy neopsychotherapyspeak that fills the scripts of so many other films.
Which isn’t to say I believe Leigh is being a reactionary with Hard Truths. He has, and always has had, his own vision as a filmmaker, and he builds this particular story around a single suspenseful focal point: Will Pansy ever say something kind? (Maybe in that 98th or 99th minute, but I have grave doubts.) She seems unable to physically relax, but any attempt to, say, rub her shoulders would inevitably end up like her interactions with her doctor and dentist – any tiny slight against her results in punitive pushback for all parties, herself included, and she goes home untreated. She’s an outsized version of someone you likely know, who’s impossible to please and challenges notions of unconditional love. Although Leigh drops in a sweet moment of hope in the film’s final moments, the great and troubling irony of the film is that he essentially challenges those of us who cling to idealism down to our last breath, to hold out hope for the hopeless.
Our Call: Hard Truths is further proof that John Waters is never wrong. STREAM IT.
John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.