Review by
Eric Hillis
Directed by: Mike Leigh
Starring: Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Michele Austin, David Webber, Tuwaine Barrett
Alf Garnett. Rupert Rigsby. Victor Meldrew. Hyacinth Bucket. There's a
character type beloved of British sitcom writers: a blowhard who barely
leaves their own home because they possess a superiority complex and view
other people as a menace. The sitcoms in which such characters take centre
stage feature a supporting cast of long-suffering relatives and friends,
some of whom try to argue back, but most simply keep their heads down. If
they were around in the 21st century, Garnett, Rigsby and Meldrew would no
doubt spend their time ranting on social media against society's perceived
ills. Bucket would likely be caught on camera amid some public breakdown and
labelled a "Karen."
Such figures provide much amusement for the 25-minute runtime of a sitcom
episode, but what if we had to spend more time with them? What if their
creators were interested in getting inside their heads rather than simply
deploying them as avatars of angry, small-minded Little Englanders?
With Hard Truths, Mike Leigh seeks to provide answers to such questions. At first
glance, Pansy (Marianne Jean-Baptiste) seems like every bit the lead
of a late 20th-century British sitcom, save for being black. There's
something of the Hyacinth Bucket in how she obsesses over neatness, keeping
her home spotless to such a degree it resembles a show house rather than any
actual living quarters. Like Garnett, Rigsby and Meldrew she prefers staying
at home, constantly lecturing her long-suffering husband Curtley (David Webber) and man-child son Moses (Tuwaine Barrett) on all that's wrong with
the world. When she's forced to leave the house she seeks out conflict with
store clerks and passers-by, all while positioning herself as the
victim.
Pansy is a spiritual cousin to Scott, the angry driving instructor played
by Eddie Marsan in Leigh's Happy-Go-Lucky, convinced that the world is against her and only she can see sense. In
the years since the 2008 release of Happy-Go-Lucky, an entire online industry has sprung up to cater to feeding the gripes of
people like Pansy and Scott with confirmation that the world has indeed gone
mad. Pansy is never shown using the internet, and we suspect she is barely
aware of its existence, so rather than ranting online she keeps it old
school and takes on people face to face.
Pansy is so over the top with her vitriol that she's undeniably amusing,
and the first half of Hard Truths is as hilarious as anything
Leigh has gifted us. But as Leigh slowly peels back the layers of Pansy he
exposes the harsh reality, or indeed the hard truth, that she's clearly
suffering from a deep depression. While we sympathise with her husband and
son, we also see how they've enabled Pansy by their silence and inability to
recognise her troubles. On fraught visits to a doctor and dentist we see how
medical professionals would similarly rather give up on Pansy than endure
her presence. Only Pansy's younger sister, amiable hairdresser Chantelle (Michele Austin), is unwilling to give up on her sibling, despite Pansy's best attempts to
push her away.
Leigh devotes much time to Chantelle and her daughters - trainee
lawyer Aleisha (Sophia Brown) and skincare marketer Kayla
(Ani Nelson) - who unlike Pansy spend time in the real world and
endure knock backs while taking them in their stride. We see Chantelle,
Aleisha and Kayla in the sort of scenarios that would set Pansy off, whether
from messy customers or condescending employers, and we're almost tempted to
wonder if maybe Pansy is right to seek confrontation rather than going
through life nodding her head to appease people she believes are idiots. But
that's how we get by, isn't it?
By the time Leigh sits his characters down for a Mother's Day dinner in
Chantelle's flat, we're on the edge of our seats as to how this volatile
encounter might play out. As Chantelle and her girls try to make lively
chit-chat, Pansy, Curtley and Moses maintain an awkward silence, Pansy
making it abundantly clear that she's there under duress while the two men
seem terrified to say anything for fear of upsetting her. There's less
tension in the dinner scene from The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.
Reuniting after their collaboration on 1996's
Secrets & Lies, Leigh, Jean-Baptiste and Austin click together to produce some startling
work. Along with her turn in Peter Strickland's
In Fabric, Pansy is the highlight of Jean-Baptiste's recent career, a whirlwind
performance that sucks you up and leaves you emotionally bedraggled by the
end. In the less showy role Austin is a subtly brilliant counterweight,
telling us much about these two women's relationship simply by the way
Chantelle looks at her troubled sister. There's a small moment where Pansy
insists on climbing the stairs to Chantelle's flat rather than share the
elevator with her sister, and the manner in which Austin's Chantelle
nervously glances back is devastating. As the taciturn Curtley and Moses,
Webber and Barrett also give heart-wrenching performances; the final
close-up of Webber's Curtley's realisation of just how much of a mess he's
made by maintaining a silence for decades might be the most crushing image
you'll see all year.
Following his sojourn into British cultural and social history with
Mr Turner
and
Peterloo, Leigh is back to what he does best, working with actors to create
fictional characters that feel like people we know in our own lives. Most of
us know a Pansy, or if we don't we've probably seen them put on display in
the stocks of online ire. Thanks to Hard Truths we may look at
them a little differently now.
Hard Truths is in UK/ROI cinemas
from January 31st.
