By Finnlay Victor Dall
Mike Leigh’s latest film, Hard Truths, digs deep into what it truly means to have a victim complex, how the abrasive personalities we all have to put up with can stem from their own unaddressed trauma, and the fact that sometimes narcissism and self-hatred are conjoined prisons from which people never escape.
Pansy (Marianne Jean-Baptiste, of In Fabric and one of Mike Leigh’s earlier films, Secrets & Lies) can only be described as miserable. She jolts out of bed at the slightest noise or bump, she scrubs clean furniture, fearful that even a single germ might be present in the house, and if it wasn’t for an ingrained need to look after her unemployed son Moses (Tuwaine Barrett) and her distant husband Curtley (David Webber), she probably wouldn’t go outside at all. All these negative anxieties bubble up inside her, unaddressed, until they spew forth in the form of a general bitterness and snarky hatred for the people around her. In the lead up to Mother’s Day, we watch as she accosts grocery store workers, makes her son and husband feel small for the tiniest inconveniences, and never has anything but complaints for her sister, the ever positive Chantelle (Michele Austin, also a Secrets & Lies cast member) when she gets her hair done at home. Despite being the root cause of her own present problems, Pansy is always quick to place the blame on others, and as dread creeps up on an eventual Mother’s Day brunch, it seems that her self-awareness is beyond saving.
On paper, a character like Pansy, so cruel and too stubborn to change, should be wrought with cliches: a cardboard Karen. But Jean-Baptitse pulls out so many layers of grief, frustration and anxiety that she paints a marvellous portrait of a truly misunderstood woman. And in service to that, every other performer keeps pace with her. Austin, playing polar opposite as the compassionate, life of the party Chantelle, is a much needed reprieve from the hopelessness wrought by Pansy, and Barrett, while non-verbal for most of the film, uses his body to convey a sensitive twenty-something child feeling awkward in his gruff skin. Furthermore, thanks to Leigh’s tendency to work through scenes with his actors, rather than having them memorise a strict script of dialogue, everyone freely improvises a full range of emotions and chatter that gives weight to the family’s chemistry – and toxicity.
However, the lack of a formal structure left me wanting more. I didn’t want closure per se, as I was more than happy for the film to end in absolute tragedy. But it was hard to watch a character never change, especially when her family, whose separate arcs feel more like quick tangents than meaningful looks into the lives of those affected by an ill family member, exist largely to enable her behaviour. We do get glimpses into their problems: Moses goes for walks to escape his family drama, only to be tormented by bullies, one even facetiously telling him not to “cut” himself, and both of Chantelle’s daughters are undermined at work by their incompetent bosses or teammates. Nevertheless, their worries are always brushed aside by Leigh in favour of more misery soaked banter from Pansy. Ironically, the film revolves around her, and that’s kind of the point, but when the film ends exactly where it began, and everyone, with the exception of Moses, stays as miserable as when they started, even after all those bottled up emotions finally spill out onto the table, I wondered what it was all for.
The film started to feel aimless the closer it got to the truth of why Pansy was the way she was. And while the actors were keeping up the energy, I couldn’t help but notice small things that sucked me right out of the film. The string heavy score doesn’t match the tone, lighting flattens faces, sets feel bare, and shots, although serviceable, lack any inspiration. That’s not to mention awful cuts between takes that stick out like a graduate film. And because of this, the film loses a small but important part of its reality. Hard Truths no longer looks like an accurate portrait documenting a troubled woman, instead, it begins to look more like a great play, adapted poorly for TV screens. The material is spellbinding but the people handling it (under Mike Leigh) cannot elevate it beyond a slot on Channel 4.
Yet, like Pansy, as much as I am compelled to tear down and dismiss the work that sullied a good story, I must admit something: this is my first Mike Leigh film. Ashamed as I am to write it, I haven’t seen Happy-Go-Lucky or Secrets & Lies, or even his cult classic Naked. So, when Chantelle finally snapped at her sister while visiting the gravesite of their departed mother, following Pansy cursing the old woman on the very day she is supposed to be celebrated, I felt like her words were aimed directly at me and not just her sister. Chantelle asks Pansy, “Why are you like this?” Her response, “I don’t know.” And in this moment we realise Pansy doesn’t just hate everyone else, she hates herself, she hates her conditions, and she hates existing at all. Her tough façade breaks and we see she’s nobody’s victim but her own. With moments like that, why am I criticising a film I should reasonably love, picking apart every technical fault instead of enjoying the tragedy unfolding in front of me? I don’t know.
Chantelle embraces her sister and provides a simple answer: “I don’t understand you [either], but I love you.” Head Film Critic at Indiewire David Erlich responded to the quote in his own review of the film, arguing: “It’s a message that Leigh has been trying to convey to his characters for more than 40 years, and one that has seldom been so natural to accept for ourselves.”
Maybe not being privy to Leigh’s previous works, of which now span half a century, had blinded me to the hard truth of his latest film: that real life stories aren’t so clean cut as a polished film. Maybe I’ll learn to appreciate the film in time, but for now, while I don’t quite understand Hard Truths, I do still love it.
Hard Truths can currently be seen at the British Film Festival, running from November 6th until December 8th in Melbourne.
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