For all the supposed quietness of Mike Leigh’s contemporary films, he is a master of emotional extremes. The teary Brenda Blethyn in Secrets & Lies (1996), the joyful effervescence of Sally Hawkins in Happy-Go-Lucky (2008) and in Hard Truths (2024), his newest film, the despairing anger of Marianne-Jean Baptiste. The film follows Pansy (Baptiste) struggling with depressive and anxious episodes. Her sister Chantelle (Michele Austin) is her compassionate counterpart, encouraging Pansy to accompany her to their mother’s grave on Mother’s Day where the film culminates.

“For all the supposed quietness of Mike Leigh’s contemporary films, he is a master of emotional extremes”

Pansy is at the opposite end of the horseshoe to Hawkins’ Poppy in Happy-Go-Lucky. Whereas Poppy’s optimism disrupts those around her, so does Patsy’s pessimism. Both appear in scenes with shop assistants and with sisters, policing emotion. Poppy’s breezy attempts to spread cheer, however, are replaced by Pansy’s endeavours to fix her own emotional state; these public disturbances often involve asking people to account for their feelings, or giving Pansy a temporary means of accounting for her own. Baptiste’s performance delicately juggles both the psychological weight of this position with the biting humour of her remarks. “What’s a baby got pockets for? What’s it going to keep in its pockets? A knife?“, she asks her husband and son who, as in most of the film, remain silent. I had been seeing the trailer before other films for weeks, and this line often got a laugh but at the actual screening of Hard Truths, was now uneasier. Against the moments of anxiety, for example, Baptiste blurs a line between humour and defensive withdrawal.

Her sister Chantelle thrives in social space. Her own moments of humour, for example, occur with customers at the hair salon where she works or joking with her daughters in a flat messy compared to the empty minimalism of Pansy’s more modern home. What may sound a neat dichotomy is itself made messy by the families of both women, whose own truths are glimpsed in short vignettes. Often focussing on work, these moments of dismissive bosses or verbose employees bring to light the emotional labours at the core of the film; Pansy’s depression, Chantelle’s care and both women’s trials of grief and motherhood.

"Hard Truths is a quiet and complexly uncomfortable film”

Leigh’s first contemporary film in 14 years, his domestic aesthetic now feels hyper-sharp. The sharp lighting and neat cinematography perhaps lose some of the familiar textures of his most popular films. During the intense scenes at the heart of the film, however, I was thankful for this coldness. The characters (specifically Baptiste and Austin) are rendered uncomfortably real with the plot distilling to somewhat universal familial dynamics. It is refreshing that Leigh’s British everyfamily is also a Black one, bringing extra dimension to discussions concerning the workplace and the public policing of emotion.

Compared to Leigh’s supposed masterpieces (such as the Palme d’Or winning Secrets & Lies), Hard Truths is a much quieter and complexly uncomfortable film. At moments, this quietness becomes enigmatic, specifically toward the end, and I was left feeling somewhat short changed after the moving peak scenes before, lifted by the two central performances. Baptiste is surely one of the strongest actors of the year and her omission at the Oscars is perhaps in part down to the occasional missed note in Leigh’s script. Hard Truths is a moving family portrait that lives up to its ‘hard’ name in a few enigmatic moments but ultimately in the refreshing intensity of its central performances.

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