JunkDror

The hardest pill to swallow is the truth, and no one discerns this philosophy like Mike Leigh.

Hard Truths, written and directed by Leigh, is a depressing story of tragic complacency and miserable projections, all fueled by a resentment for life so strong it reveals anger is a piercing cowardice. But what precisely makes the film so trying is the same thing that makes it so captivating. An empathetic experience, Mike Leigh embeds a recurring theme of naturalness and realism through his carefully crafted characters, like many of his previous works, that makes it nearly impossible not to stay glued to your seat when blasted with simultaneous, secondhand frustration and compassion for their truly sad lives. 

An early sequence of Pansy (Marianne Jean-Baptiste) laboriously cleaning her sleek, modern home is unlovely and a representative precursor to the harsh nags of despair that plague the rest of the movie. From Pansy’s dissatisfaction with her son Moses’ (Tuwaine Barrett) lack of ambition to her road rage-like outburst with a friendly retail store employee, the audience is continuously burdened with her berating nature as if we are the one’s being scolded. 

Equally as irritating, but in an unpronounced, literally silent way, is Pansy’s husband Curtley (David Webber). Speaking what feels like very few words for most of the film, Curtley possesses an indifference towards not only Pansy’s unnecessary complaints, but even to “normal” characters who ask him courteous questions about his mother’s well-being – his response always being nothing. Whether he is simply worn out from all the howling Pansy does for him, or the stereotypical bummy husband heavily responsible for his wife’s pent up fury, Curtley’s deafening silence is as loud and obnoxious as any childish scream for attention. 

But here is the harsh truth: if you understood this film to be nothing but catty and overbearing, you may suffer from the disease that is apathy and emotional immaturity.  

Mike Leigh, the ultimate empath, is known to bridge the gap between fiction and reality by tying our heartstrings to these performing puppets that almost seem too extreme in their behaviors and emotional regulation to be relatable. Though time will endlessly tell, beneath the surface of a heart of steel is a rusty layer of damaged pipes oftentimes too faulty to relieve. Hard Truths is  similar in its approach to unveiling its characters by abiding by assumption. That is, relying on the audience to be capable of both detecting the subtlest of changes in body language, and immersing oneself in the shoes of the surrounding people responding to such fluctuations. It is a risky approach to film-making that can leave viewers unsatisfied with its mundanity, but Leigh makes it digestible if you’re paying attention. The camera work alone, down to his iconic and claustrophobic, head-to-toe wide shots capturing the egregious tension amongst this ensemble is worthy of praise.

While the film was not deep in plot – the endless nagging being quite the distraction even if there was any – it was most certainly intimate and profoundly vulnerable thanks to the balancing gracefulness of Pansy’s sister Chantelle (Michele Austin), and her two daughters Aleisha (Sophia Brown) and Kayla (Ani Nelson). Alongside possibly the only person who’s company she can stand, Pansy’s intensity is dimmed and her undeniable misery shines relentlessly. Chantelle is gentle, but thick-skinned; full of life and laughter, but comfortingly truthful when need be – an ideal that looks distant and unachievable in Pansy’s eyes. 

In true sister fashion, they discuss the happenings of their lives without guilt or remorse (not that Pansy had a filter in the first place) which make for the most detailing moments in the entire film, as Pansy is receptive only to the words of her sister. She reveals her disgust with her husband, sense of disparagement in her family, and a spiraling loneliness that poses concern; collectively a vague explanation for the brute shell she lugs. 

For all its worth, everyone gives the truth differently, but what we do with it seems more black and white. Do you accept it with your head held high or deny its validity and walk to the beat of your own ignorance? Thankfully for Pansy’s pride, she can crumble and hide behind the doors of her sister’s warmth, and go on to face her compulsions again with a wrath only she knows is disconsolation. Similarly, Curtley in his hushful way, crashes under the pressure of an overlooked existence, but he refuses to confront his reality altogether. For others like Chantelle, who has elegantly come to terms with the tragic loss of her mother, or her daughter Aleisha, the perfect example of readjusting to a workplace mishap, the truth guides a progressive course. And while the truth is not always kind, an empathetic hand and an ounce of self-compassion makes the grief bearable.