Marianne Jean-Baptiste gave one of, if not the best performance, of the year that few people will see in Hard Truths as its current US theatrical count of 121 is likely the widest release it will receive having missed out on receiving any Academy Award nominations despite Jean-Baptiste amassing major critical Best Actress wins from NYFCC, LAFCA, and NSFC and nominations for BAFTA Film Awards and the Critics’ Choice Awards, both of whose results are still be determined. Academy Award nominations are critical for independent films to receive a wider audience, the so-called Oscar bump, so missing out on a nomination will most likely impact the film’s reach. But if you are reading this, do yourself a favour, and seek the film out.
Mike Leigh wrote and directed the film, reuniting with Jean-Baptiste and Michele Austin (who plays Chantelle), who also starred in his film Secrets & Lies, for which Leigh and Jean-Baptiste were nominated for Academy Awards in their respective categories. At the beginning of the film, after establishing the neighbourhood of identical townhouses where the rest of them have lush hedges/trees in the front, but the house where Pansy (played by Jean-Baptiste) and her family live only has a cold brick fence, we meet Pansy who has a similarly cold defense with barbed words flung about her son, her neighbours and everyone that crosses her path. She attacks first, as you are watching the film progress, you can see she is someone with a lot of anxiety and fear, and you can see that manifest through anger. In one scene at Chantelle’s salon, the Covid lockdowns are mentioned. Covid is so rarely addressed in films that its reference seems especially purposeful and as something that perhaps exasperated Pansy feelings, anxiety, and behaviour all before the film began, because of the prolonged isolation from her family and lack of interaction with people. However, the full root is revealed when the sisters visit their mother’s grave, and her unresolved grief is laid bare, stemming from the type of relationship she had with her mother and how it affected her life and the choices she made. Particularly staying with Curtley (played by David Webber), the father of her son. Not to mention finding her dead body.
If you’ve ever worked in customer service, you’ve probably encountered someone who reminds you of Pansy; someone who attacks first. But this film pushes the audience to look past the surface and deeper. It also doesn’t provide an easy ending. The ending is a little ambiguous and left for interpretation. I think the breath at the end was Pansy taking a step forward and healing a little, as someone who struggled to help herself throughout the film, she might not have been ready to help Curtley, but she was taking a breath – and that was a start.
I was captured by the film’s score, the lyricism that lifted and carried the quieter moments and emotions forward. However, the absence of the music was just as powerful, particularly the ending, which in some ways bookended the opening, re-establishing the house and the people in it with an exhale of breath in the silence.
While Jean-Baptiste, Austin, and Webber carry the bulk of the film’s emotional weight, it would be remiss to leave out the quiet but resonate performance of Tuwaine Barrett as Moses, Pansy and Curtley’s son. Rounding out the cast are Sophia Brown as Aleisha and Ani Nelson as Kayla, who play Chantelle’s daughters, their warm relationship with their mother provides further contrast for relationships fostered by Pansy due to her grief and pain.
Hard Truths is currently in theatres.
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