Toronto 2024 Review: HARD TRUTHS, Funny, Savage, Sad ... and Hopeful
They say Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. Equally so, the wrath of an aging woman who loses her internal compass or purpose is a terrifying thing.
I have an fiery aunt who struggles with a neural issue that has her trapped in her own broken body. When in her presence, you can feel the force-lines of her rage (and fear) emanating in all directions at this debilitating condition and lack of a pragmatic solution to it. To say Hard Truths spoke to me is a bit of an understatement.
On the fifth anniversary of their mother’s passing, two sisters and their families come together for lunch and bonding. You probably know that the latest film from Mike Leigh is not that simple. It is funny, savage, and sad - but never easy, or comfortable. Few filmmakers have such a knack as Leigh for making tightly wound characters in domestic situations feel like despair and hope, simultaneously.
Not since Johnny in his 1993 masterpiece, Naked, has Leigh examined such a broken soul howling against the universe, spewing out negative energy and making everyone around him worse for wear.
At the centre of Hard Truths is Pansy (Marianne Jean-Baptiste) a ferocious critic of everything, and every one, around her. Her husband, Curtley, suffers her in silence.
Her adult son, Moses, is cowed and broken, choosing to go for long walks away from the house. It's an effort to avoid his own mother’s relentless criticisms. Pansy maintains her household like a fragile tyrant. The slightest of glance, or quietest “kissing of the teeth” (the family's go-to rebellion of her dominance) will send her into another angry tirade. Hers is a home is built on eggshells.
And God help anyone out in the real world who has an interaction with her. From retail clerks to medical professionals, her ire is fierce. At one point she tells her dentist to show her some respect, seemingly oblivious to what she projects out into the world.
But deep down she is aware. Scared, exhausted, and on the border of becoming a prisoner of her own home, she obsessively cleans it as a coping measure. Her family’s clean is not her clean, and she makes damn sure to let them know it. Pigeons noisily coo and encroach, pecking, toward the edge of her home. Filthy and social animals, these also drive Pansy to distraction, and of course, more rage.
For the first act, it is a riot to watch Pansy in her full fury. These encounters are contrasted by similar ‘social contract’ moments with her sister Chantelle, who is a generous listener with a boisterous laugh. The sisters are so different, that when together, they cannot even agree whether to take the lift or the stairs. Such is the way of family.
As the visit to their mother’s grave approaches, the women become more tense with one another. Pansy’s pathologies come to a full boil. It becomes clear from the contours of her relationships and the way she treats strangers (and kin); it's all profoundly and tragically sad. Pansy, a smart and independent woman deep down, knows that she is wrong, but not how to fix it, nor her own lashing defence mechanisms.
While Hard Truths is indeed dominated by Marianne Jean-Baptiste’s powerful performance, Leigh offers many, many moments to observe all of the relationships of the sister’s families, both together and apart. The children are both the product of their parenting, and a reaction to it. Chantelle’s daughters are vivacious, intelligent and extroverted with a positive outlook on life, even when challenged.
Moses, Pansy’s only child, is devoid of ambition, or even the ability eye contact. Curtley (David Webber) has a better relationship with his time-obsessed assistant as they do domestic plumbing work (naturally) than his wife, who he borderline despises, and punishes himself for this weakness.
The family gathering may be the centre-piece of the film (but cleverly, is not quite the climax) and is a master-class in balance and observation. Leigh has been doing this long enough that he makes these kind of complex relationship gears (and grease) look easy. Another Year, All or Nothing, and High Hopes are the obvious pedigree here. All deal with the strange energy, magnetism and repulsion, of family.
Hard Truths is a bookend and a titular-contrast with his previous collaboration with his lead actress, the much lauded Secrets & Lies. More statues for the bookshelf are likely to follow. At 81, now as much as ever, Mike Leigh is attuned to both the bombast and nuance of people. They are hard, and the devil is indeed in the details. I am grateful that he keeps making these movies.
Hard Truths
Director(s)
- Mike Leigh
Writer(s)
- Mike Leigh
Cast
- Marianne Jean-Baptiste
- Bryony Miller
- Michele Austin
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