Review: « Hard Truths » is full of verbal twin

After two ambitious costume films, British veteran Mike Leigh is finally back with an insightful relationship drama. Over the years he has introduced us to a number of troublesome people in his films. The disturbing girlfriends of « Girls in the career » (1997), the super-enthusiastic teacher Poppy in « Happy-Go-Lucky » (2008) and the dysfunctional family in « Life plays! » (1990).

But no matter how annoying all these people have been, Leigh has always managed to make them charming. Pansy in « Hard Truths » may be the most difficult so far to love. Her world is full of perceived microaggressions. Lisming types with fundraising boxes, silly babies with pockets on the clothes (what do they do with pockets for?) And a lot of excessively helpful shop assistants. Imagine people can’t just leave her alone!

At home in the apartment Has her husband and son long ago silenced when she starts her lithanior. After years of reprimands, it is now just bile out of her mouth. It is quickly understood that it is at least as exhausting to listen to her as it is to be Pansy.

Marianne Jean-Baptiste conveys her frustration by ending the body as if it were a knotted fist. Once upon a time, Jean-Baptiste was nominated for an Oscar for his supporting role in Leigh’s « Secrets and Lies » (1996). This time she wears the whole movie on her shoulders and delivers every verbal sneak with enormous precision.

It is an impressive physical performance that shows what outstanding actor she is. In addition, the spinning is so elaborated that it sometimes becomes quite fun in exactly the same way as when Fran Lebowitz spreads his entertaining sarcasms around him. Until it is not so fun anymore but even gets a little tedious. The stripped -down form and the clinically decorated rooms in the house also do not add much movie magic.

But then comes Finally the long -awaited recess. On the other side of town, sister Chantelle (Michele Austin) lives with her daughters. The sisters’ relationship is as taken from a brothers Grimm saga. They are each other’s opposites: Chantelle is light with close to laughter while Pansy is dark all the way into the soul. Again, it becomes clear that you can have completely different experiences of your childhood even though you have grown up in one and the same family.

But unfortunately, the movie only scratches the surface of that particular trauma. The moral dilemma, the tough truths that the title refers to, is more about who should be able to encourage the complicated to seek help? Is that how you show consideration? Or? After a grand collaboration, most of the conflict ebps out and towards the end it doesn’t really feel like Leigh himself knows how to end his painful history. But for characters that back through life, maybe there is no happy ending?

See more. Three other films by Mike Leigh: « Naked » (1993), « Vera Drake » (2004), « Peterloo » (2018).

Read others Film and TV reviews in DN and more texts of Wanda Bendjelloul.