HARD TRUTHS
Wednesday, April 16th
7:30pm at the Capitol Centre
97 mins | 2024 | United Kingdom, Spain
Dir: Mike Leigh
Language: English
HARD TRUTHS
In his 23rd film, British director Mike Leigh reunites with Marianne Jean-Baptiste (Secrets & Lies) to create a challenging but ultimately compassionate look at modern family life.
Reuniting with Oscar-nominated Secrets & Lies star Marianne Jean-Baptiste and returning to contemporary London for a story inverse to his 2008 Festival favourite Happy-Go-Lucky, the latest from seven-time Oscar-nominated auteur Mike Leigh is bracingly tough, darkly funny, and pierced with insight. Shifting between various members of an extended Black family in London, Hard Truths is a psychologically rich ensemble film as only Leigh can cultivate.
Hypersensitive to the slightest possible offence and ever ready to fly off the handle, Pansy (Jean-Baptiste) does not ingratiate. She criticizes her husband Curtley (David Webber) and their adult son Moses (Tuwaine Barrett) so relentlessly that neither bother to argue with her. She picks fights with strangers and sales clerks and enumerates the world’s countless flaws to anyone who will listen, most especially her cheerful sister Chantal (Michele Austin), who might be the only person still capable of sympathizing with her. As the film peels back Pansy’s pain and the daily fallout left in its wake, we wonder if a breaking point will come for the family.
This being a Mike Leigh film, Pansy’s orneriness frequently inspires a chuckle, while the diverse responses from members of her family speak to the complexities of grappling with a loved one’s grief and chronic disappointment. The film’s meticulous attention to its characters’ subtlest behavioural shifts infuses every scene with tenderness, so that even as it refuses simplistic resolutions, Hard Truths leaves us with a genuine understanding of who these people are, and why even the most frustrating of them deserves some care.
Tickets are available at the door.
General Admission: $12
North Bay Film Members: $10
Students: $5
“With a heartbreaking lead performance from Jean-Baptiste at its center, Leigh has crafted one of the most sincere slice-of-life films to come out of British cinema in recent years.”
– Nadira Begum, Paste Magazine
“Ultimately, the truths of Hard Truths are as simple and poignant as they are difficult to initially discern. An unmistakable certainty, though, is that this reunion of Leigh and Jean-Baptiste was too long in the making—and should be repeated once again post haste”
– Nick Schager, The Daily Beast
“In Mike Leigh’s lacerating new film, Marianne Jean-Baptiste delivers a hall-of-fame acting triumph as a London housewife and mother who’s mad at the world and ready to give us all a tongue-lashing. She’s an emotional powderkeg ready to blow. Better duck”
– Peter Travers, ABC News