Hard Truths

Directed by Mike Leigh
Starring Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Michele Austin, David Webber

Mike Leigh’s new film explores family relationships in the post-pandemic world. After over a decade spent making his two epic period films Mr. Turner and Peterloo, Leigh returns to his ongoing exploration of the contemporary world with this tragi-comic study of human strengths and weaknesses.

Housewife Pansy (Marianne Jean-Baptiste) is not happy. She is agoraphobic, a hypochondriac and paranoid about animals, birds, insects, plants, and flowers. She is confrontational with everyone, especially her plumber husband Curtley and her unemployed son Moses, whom she thinks is wasting his life. Her sister Chantelle (Michele Austin) runs a thriving hair salon. A single mum, she enjoys life, and lives harmoniously with her daughters Kayla, who works in cosmetics, and Aleisha, a trainee lawyer.