Review| Hard Truths( 2024)- "I learned that cinema puts us in someone else's shoes, inside a world, whether internal or external, that we will probably never experience"

“Why did you marry him?”

“I was afraid. I didn't want to end up alone.”

Hard Truths

Watching Hard Truths made me feel deeply uncomfortable, the kind of discomfort that makes it hard to say, at least for a while, whether we like the film or not. I did an imagination exercise where I saw myself a few years older, grumpy, resentful and complaining (not that I'm not a little bit of each...). After a while, I reflected a little and realised that without activating a certain empathy with the character, it would be impossible to welcome her or even see myself in her a little.

The film moves between two family units: Pensy (Marienne Jean-Baptiste), her husband Curtley (David Webber) and their son Moses (Tuwaine Barrett). And Pensy's sister Chantelle (Michele Austin) and her daughters, Kayla (Ani Nelson) and Aleisha (Sophia Brown).

Through a tracking shot, we follow a young man arriving at Curtley's house, who is waiting for him in a van parked at the side of the house. The Pensy family's two-storey house, with its immaculate white façade, is located on the corner of a quiet street typical of a suburb of a large or medium-sized city.

Inside the house, the same impeccability: few pieces of furniture, in sober and modern colours, a perfectly clean and organised house, a backyard with no attractions.

However, the feeling of quiet and peace quickly disappears when Pensy is introduced to us. From then on, this middle-aged housewife will parade an almost unbelievable verbiage of complaints, insults, grudges, and anger. No one is spared from her barrage. Mike Leigh's film, presented as a comedy and drama, perhaps wanted to make us laugh uncomfortably at the scenes in which Pensy's offensive and hateful dialogues/monologues, whether with her husband and son or in a supermarket queue, pop up on the screen. I truly don't know if I found anything to laugh at here.

Marienne/Pensy: fantástica

Chantelle, our protagonist's sister, couldn't be more different, managing a successful beauty salon, loyal customers, gossip, laughter. It is no different at her home, where an atmosphere of lightness and joy permeates the relationship between her and her two adult daughters, Kayla and Aleisha. And as the icing on the cake, Chantelle's flat is the complete opposite of her sister's townhouse, with its charming balcony, potted plants, colourful chairs, rugs and glasses of sparkling wine circulating.

I really liked the editing (Tania Reddin), which alternates between moments of respite and joy with Chantelle and moments of deep apprehension and sadness when Pensy reappears on the scene. We contemplate a quiet and peaceful street, only for Pensy to immediately launch into complaints and insults against Moses, her adult, unemployed son. He rarely leaves his room and uses his huge headphones as a barrier to his mother's verbiage. We are parachuted into his sister's living room with all its joy and good humour, only to see her struggling to do her sister's hair, who complains about absolutely everything around her, even things that are not in her field of vision.

And so the scenes alternate, but as the narrative progresses, Pensy emerges from a state of deep hatred and plunges into pure melancholy. And in what we might call the climax of the narrative, these two completely opposite worlds meet in Chantelle's apartment, framing the characters' complete discomfort and despair.

Tudo muito clean

Família reunida

Pensy is by no means an easy person. Her husband no longer speaks, wandering through life with the look of someone who has no answers for what is happening in his home, perhaps not even knowing what the questions are. Moses, even in the presence of his cousins and aunt and in the absence of his mother, does not rejoice, does not breathe freely. There is a touching dialogue between the sisters in which we realise that Chantelle wants and needs to help, but there is no way, no opening.

Curtley

Marianne Jean-Baptiste, in yet another collaboration with Mike Leigh, is splendid in the role with her machine gun of resentments. And here I return to my complete discomfort with the character: it is a pessimistic film that leaves no room for a possible transformation of the character. By this I do not mean to suggest happy endings or cathartic transformations, but rather that, based on Pensy's self-perception after a dialogue with her sister, she may be able to peek through the crack in the door.

We don't know how Pensy got here, and we have no clues (perhaps I missed them) that would allow us to understand her, welcome her, or even identify with her on some level. Life is simply unbearable for this woman who carries all her pain, phobias, and grief on her back. It is difficult to even formulate a question about what happened to this woman, what is happening, and what will happen. Her unease spreads and sticks to anyone who shares the same space.

I learned that cinema puts us in someone else's shoes, inside a world, whether internal or external, that we will probably never experience, and that empathy is an important exercise for dealing with life. I didn't achieve this with the character of Pensy.

As irmãs

Mike Leigh places us in a dead-end maze, where small scenes that could show character development end up amounting to nothing. The scenes where Peny vents her dissatisfaction and hatred in public (car park, shop) struck me as somewhat exaggerated, as if we needed that to convince us that the character is unbearable. The feeling at the end of the film was that the director intended to make a study of a borderline character, exploring Marianne's talent, which is no small thing, and that the script was merely a backdrop for the story. That doesn't mean it wasn't a good and curious experience to watch it.

Moses num breve respiro

Fun facts: Mike Leigh, in his half-century career, has been nominated for seven Oscars, won a Palme d'Or at Cannes (Secrets & Lies, 1996) and a Golden Lion at Venice (Vera Drake, 2004).

Marianne Jean-Baptiste was nominated for a BAFTA in 2025 for Hard Truths and won the British Independent Film Award, also in 2025.