“You don’t know my suffering. You don’t know my pain… I’m not a well woman.” – Pansy
Although I imagine the great social realist Mike Leigh would be horrified, while I was watching Marianne Jean-Baptiste’s remarkable performance as Pansy Deacon in Hard Truths my mind kept returning to an internet meme. “I wouldn’t be like this if I knew how to not be like this.” The quiet (or loud) desperation contained in that often self-deprecating sentence speaks volumes to anyone whose emotions are spiralling beyond their control. Knowing that there’s something profoundly wrong and not knowing how to fix it is agonising. Pansy is in agony and she’s sharing it because it’s easier to attack and have people react negatively than it is to sit with the self-loathing of depression and isolation (self-inflicted or otherwise).
Pansy is, as her niece describes, “maddy-maddy”. She wakes up in the morning with a sharp shout as if being conscious sets off her fight or flight reflex. Pansy goes to the window and pulls back the curtains and looks out at the pleasant day. It is her enemy. Doves cooing are akin to mechanical sirens. She cleans obsessively to control her environment. As soon as her son Moses (Tuwaine Barrett) lumbers down the stairs of the South London terrace, Pansy is coiled and ready to attack.
Attack she does, and indiscriminately. Whether it be demanding her cowed husband, Curtley (David Webber) remove his work boots to walk a few metres through the house, or complaining about a neighbour she’s watched through the window (some of the questions are hilarious, “What’s a baby need pockets for? A knife?”) everyone is a target. Pansy’s anger is so audacious that strangers do a double take to ensure they’ve just heard what she’s said. Curtley and Moses mostly sit in silence knowing that there’s little point in interrupting Pansy or pulling her up. She will redouble her efforts or move on to some other perceived failure.
Pansy’s younger sister, Chantelle (Michele Astin) is a hairdresser who is popular with her clients and adored by her adult daughters Kayla (Ani Nelson) and Aleisha (Sophia Brown). Chantelle is the only person who can ‘handle’ her pugnacious sister, but the depth of Pansy’s pain and anxiety is harder for her to fathom than the outrageous anger. At least when Pansy is fighting, she’s alive. It’s when Pansy repeats that she’s tired and wants it all to stop that the real worry sets in. Pansy has suffered anxiety and depression since childhood, but she had to get on with things the way her mother Pearl did. There was no time for the working-class family to ‘indulge’ whatever was wrong with Pansy. What Pansy recalls is recriminations. “Why can’t you go outside? Why can’t you make friends? Why can’t you be happy?” Pansy’s response is an exasperated, “I don’t know!”
Although Pansy’s is the entropic orbit that Leigh follows, he ensures the audience sees at least glimpses of the lives of the other family members. Moses’ aimless walks that he takes just to not be at home. The bullying he endures for his height and weight when he comes across former high school peers. Chantelle’s connection to other Afro-Caribbean women warmed with an implicit understanding of their lives. Curtley’s relationship with Virgil (Jonathan Livingstone) who philosophises about history. A humiliating interaction for Kayla with a capricious boss who turns down her well researched marketing plan. Kayla then lying about the presentation to her sister Aleisha, not so much to save face, but not to burden her. The encouragement Kayla and Aleisha give their cousin, Moses.
Mike Leigh and his regular cinematographer, the recently deceased Dick Pope, subtly engage the audience and ask to see beneath and through the fragile facades built in the Deacon home. The house is filled with glass, too much glass for a brittle family. A store-bought bunch of flowers causes a crisis; not only because they are unexpected but because there’s no vase for them to go in. There is a carefully arranged tribute to Pansy’s deceased mother who she appears to reject at her grave, but clearly still grieves for. Pansy will never be comfortable because there is no comforting her. A bruk couch is another point of contention. The large glass door is a reminder of how the outside world encroaches on Pansy and the impossibility of her crossing the threshold into the garden without plants.
Marianne Jean-Baptiste has spent years being an incredible actor – from her previous collaboration with Mike Leigh in 1996’s Secrets and Lies through to many years as a major character on television series such as Without a Trace. But even with an Academy Award nomination under her belt for Secrets and Lies she has remained somewhat under the radar. Hard Truths is a milestone role for her and proves that she is one of the best actors in the business. If anyone knows how to give a performer their career defining roles, it’s Mike Leigh. Sally Hawkins, Imelda Staunton, David Thewlis, Timothy Spall, Leslie Manville, Jim Broadbent, Brenda Blethyn, Eddie Marsan, Alison Steadman, Shirley Henderson, Phil Davis, and Ruth Sheen are just a handful of the luminaries Leigh collaborated with.
Hard Truths is Mike Leigh’s return to a smaller scale work after two historical dramas: 2014’s applauded Mr. Turner and 2018’s less well received Peterloo. It feels in tune with 2010’s Another Year with Pansy and Leslie Manville’s Mary both locked in self-destructive loops they know are leaving them lost and desperate. Mike Leigh’s writing is ever empathetic to the people who can’t escape themselves and lack the means and emotional resources to stem the devastation.
Hard Truths is the master at work. Outrageous, heartbreaking, and considered filmmaking. Almost every Mike Leigh film is an event – whether small or large. Hard Truths is small and large because Pansy is both, but she is never a cliché or a figure of fun. Mike Leigh invite us to witness the worst and best of people and the hard truth that sometimes “bruk” is “bruk” and love can only go so far towards fixing the broken.
Director: Mike Leigh
Cast: Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Michele Astin, David Webber
Writer: Mike Leigh
Producer: Georgina Lowe
Music: Gary Yershon
Cinematography: Dick Pope
Editor: Tania Reddin
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