Legendary filmmaker Mike Leigh returns to the contemporary world with a fierce, compassionate, and often darkly humorous study of family and the thorny ties that bind us. Reunited with Leigh for the first time since multiple Oscar-nominated Secrets and Lies, the astonishing Marianne Jean-Baptiste plays Pansy, a woman wracked by fear, tormented by afflictions, and prone to raging tirades against her husband, son, and anyone who looks her way. Meanwhile, her easygoing younger sister, played by Michele Austin (Another Year), is a single mother with a life as different from Pansy’s as their clashing temperaments – brimming with communal warmth from her salon clients and daughters alike.
This expansive film from a master dramatist takes us into the intensities of kinship, duty, and the most enduring of human mysteries: that even through lifetimes of hurt and hardship, we still find ways to love those we call family.
Marianne Jean-Baptiste has won multiple acting awards for her role, including from National Society of Film Critics, National Board of Review, New York Film Critics, Alliance of Women Film Journalists, African-American Film Critics Association.
Hard Truths is a film for a world that has only gotten angrier, yet its prolific central collaboration cleverly suggests that enduring mutual respect is a force powerful enough to combat such profound rage. -Salon.com
It is a truly blistering performance from Jean-Baptiste, reuniting with Leigh after many years, in a collaboration that was entirely worth the wait and speaks volumes for his brilliant, unconventional process. -Associated Press
Arriving nearly three decades after Secrets & Lies, Hard Truths has the feel of a genuine companion work. Intentionally or not, it expands on, completes, and at times challenges its predecessor. -The New Yorker
The brilliantly-acted story begins with laughs, then inexorably darkens. Legendary director Mike Leigh, 81, offers fewer answers than questions about grief and the human condition. -AARP
It’s certainly a tour-de-force triumph for Jean-Baptiste who is on fire in every scene and gives a fearless performance that is one for the ages. -San Jose Mercury News
‘NR’ 97min
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