Hard Truths
Mike Leigh returns to a contemporary milieu for the first time since Another Year for this raw, uncompromising domestic drama starring Marianne Jean-Baptiste (Oscar nominee for Leigh’s Secrets & Lies) in a gutsy, excoriating performance as a middle-aged, working-class woman whose emotional and physical health problems have metastasized into a profound and relentless anger.
Mike Leigh returns to a contemporary milieu for the first time since Another Year for this raw, uncompromising domestic drama that continues the great British filmmaker’s inquiries into the possibility for happiness and the limits of human connection. In a gutsy, excoriating performance, Marianne Jean-Baptiste (Oscar nominee for Leigh’s Secrets & Lies) absorbs herself completely into the role of Pansy, a middle-aged, working-class woman whose emotional and physical health problems have metastasized into a profound and relentless anger that’s become toxic for everyone around her, including her husband, grown son, doctors, and even strangers on the street. Raging against every aspect of her domestic life and fearful of the world beyond, Pansy only finds potential solace in the unwavering love of her sister, Chantelle (a magnificent, gracious Michele Austin). Bringing his customary, thrilling eye for the details of human behavior and the complexities of social interaction, Leigh has created in close collaboration with his extraordinary cast a rigorous and unflinching look at a life in freefall. An NYFF62 Main Slate selection. A Bleecker Street release.
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For the past half century, [Mike Leigh] has been making movies that, when they’re not making you gasp with laughter, take the wind out of you as quickly as a gut punch.
— Manohla Dargis, The New York Times
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