Marianne Jean-Baptiste Delivers a Show-Stopping Performance of the Year!

Throughout the many exquisitely depicted working-class dramedies he’s crafted over the last fifty years, British writer and director Mike Leigh has consistently revisited a singular yet profoundly significant inquiry: Why are certain individuals content, while others are not? What prevents Nicola, the gloomy 20-something in Leigh’s 1990 film, Life Is Sweet, from experiencing even a brief moment of solace or joy? Conversely, how does Poppy, the cheerful protagonist of Leigh’s 2008 film, Happy-Go-Lucky, manage to face every setback with optimism?

Leigh’s latest film, Hard Truths, could have been dubbed Unhappy-Go-Lucky. It traces the life of a middle-aged cynic from North London named Pansy, portrayed in the most outstanding performance I witnessed in 2024 by Marianne Jean-Baptiste.

You may recognize Jean-Baptiste from Leigh’s remarkable 1996 film, Secrets & Lies, where she portrayed a modest, self-effacing London optometrist searching for her biological mother. However, Pansy is anything but self-effacing; she leads a life filled with simmering, constant despair. Most of her days are spent inside, barking commands and insults at her grave husband, Curtley, and their 22-year-old son, Moses.

Pansy maintains a pristine household, yet the bare walls and minimal decor are strikingly lacking in warmth, joy, or individuality. When not tidying up, she attempts to catch up on sleep, lamenting about her aches, pains, and fatigue. Occasionally, she ventures out to shop or run errands, only to end up instigating altercations with those she encounters: a dentist, a salesperson, a stranger in a parking lot.

Upon returning home, she vents to Curtley and Moses about the indignities she has endured and the overall foolishness of the world surrounding her. Pansy possesses the biting humor and impeccable timing of a stand-up comedian. Although you wouldn’t necessarily want to encounter her on the street, she proves to be captivating, even enthralling, company on-screen.

Leigh is frequently labeled as a Dickensian filmmaker, and rightly so; he’s a dedicated realist with a talent for comedic exaggeration. Like almost all of Leigh’s films, Hard Truths originated from an intense workshop process lasting several months, during which the director collaborated closely with his actors to develop their characters from the ground up. Consequently, Jean-Baptiste’s performance, electrifying as it is, also carries profound emotional depth; the longer we spend with Pansy, the more we come to realize that her bitterness towards the world stems from profound loneliness and suffering.

Leigh shows little interest in conventional plots; he constructs his narratives from the nuances and fragments of daily life, transitioning from one character to another. Tuwaine Barrett delivers a quietly heart-wrenching performance as Pansy’s son, Moses, who isolates himself and spends his days either engrossed in video games or taking extended walks around the neighborhood. Pansy’s husband, Curtley, is more complex; portrayed by the excellent David Webber, he exhibits a passivity that is both relatable and frustrating.

The most notable supporting character is Pansy’s younger sister, Chantelle, played by the radiant Michele Austin, another alumna from Secrets & Lies. Chantelle could not be more unlike her sister: She is a cheerful, satisfied woman with two adult daughters of her own, doing everything possible to reach out to Pansy. In one of the film’s most poignant moments, Chantelle takes her sister to a cemetery to pay homage to their mother, whose abrupt death five years ago, we infer, lies at the heart of Pansy’s misery.

Simultaneously, Leigh refrains from filling every void; he’s too sincere a filmmaker to provide simplistic reasons for why individuals feel the way they do. His perception of Pansy — and of all the intriguing, outspoken, utterly fascinating characters he has presented — is encapsulated in that graveside moment, when Chantelle envelops her sister in a firm embrace and tells her, with equal parts frustration and affection: “I don’t understand you, but I love you.”