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.
Recommended Film Comment reading:
Sign up to the Film Comment Letter for NYFF62 coverage and more original film criticism year-round!
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
Read More
FLC and NYAFF Announce Lineup and Awards of the 25th New York Asian Film Festival, July 10–26
The New York Asian Film Festival (NYAFF) and Film at Lincoln Center today unveil the second wave of programming for its landmark 25th edition, adding more than 40 films to an already wide-ranging lineup, with very special final titles still to come.
Mark Jenkin and Mary Woodvine on Their Sci-Fi-Tinged Rose of Nevada
This week we’re excited to present a conversation from the 63rd New York Film Festival with Rose of Nevada director Mark Jenkin and actress Mary Woodvine.
Experience 10 Films Entirely on 70mm at “It’s All a Big Conspiracy,” July 1–9 at Film at Lincoln Center
Exploring conspiracy across Hollywood genres, from espionage and sci-fi to superhero cinema, political biography, Shakespearean adaptation, crime drama, cult psychodrama, and the modern action blockbuster, the series includes the first New York City theatrical screening of Tim Burton’s Batman on 70mm since its original release in 1989.