28 years after their Palme d'Or winning collaboration on the extraordinary Secrets & Lies, director Mike Leigh and actor Marianne Jean-Baptiste have reunited on Leigh's upcoming new slice of social realist drama, Hard Truths. A return to modern times for Leigh after a twofer of period pieces (Mr. Turner and Peterloo), the legendary British filmmaker's latest — which sees Jean-Baptiste star as Pansy, a woman ever on the verge of a scathing rant, a breakdown, or possibly both — looks like a darkly comic, emotionally resonant, fiercely human piece of cinema driven by an ensemble of acting powerhouses. Or, as we like to call it, a Mike Leigh film. Check out the trailer below to find out what's getting Pansy's goat in the new movie:
A supermarket bust-up, an ostrich-based insult, and an admonishment of "cheerful, grinning people" all within the trailer's first 30 seconds? Yeah, we're thinking Jean-Baptiste and Leigh are back. But whilst Pansy's frothing rage is quite the sight to behold (that diatribe against baby pockets is a doozy!), it's clear to see already that Leigh isn't interested in cartoonish caricature here. In this elegantly edited first proper look at Hard Truths, we see the director's race and class consciousness pronounced in Pansy's exchanges with her son Moses (Tuwaine Barrett), his interest in excavating our inner workings in the private anguish underpinning her outbursts, and his knack for keying into the complexities of family in the way her close-knit clan — including Secrets & Lies co-star Michele Austin, David Webber, and Sophia Brown — rally round their struggling matriarch, despite her abrasive disposition.
Here's the movie's official description: "Marianne Jean-Baptiste plays Pansy, a woman wracked by fear, tormented by afflictions, and prone to raging tirades against her husband, son, and anyone who looks her way. Meanwhile, her easygoing younger sister, played by Michele Austin (Another Year), is a single mother with a life as different from Pansy’s as their clashing temperaments - brimming with communal warmth from her salon clients and daughters alike. This expansive film [...] takes us into the intensities of kinship, duty, and the most enduring of human mysteries: that even through lifetimes of hurt and hardship, we still find ways to love those we call family."
Having been criminally denied an Oscar for her turn as Hortense Cumberbatch in her last Leigh collaboration, could Jean-Baptiste finally be given the flowers/little golden statue she so richly deserves for this long-awaited reunion? We'll find out when Hard Truths hits cinemas in the States via Bleecker Street on 6 December, and the UK and Ireland via StudioCanal in early 2025. And if you can't wait til then, the movie will have its European premiere screening at the London Film Festival this October — so don't sleep on nabbing tickets if you want to carry on being cheerful, grinning people!