Hard Truths review: Marianne Jean-Baptiste is Oscar-worthy in Mike Leigh's 'captivating' new film

In his stunning new drama, Leigh portrays "living, breathing, flawed but good people", with Marianne Jean-Baptiste starring, in "what is sure to be one of the best performances of the year".

The woman at the centre of Mike Leigh's brilliant new film is a living misery, especially to herself. Pansy, played by Marianne Jean-Baptiste in a fierce and deeply-felt performance, is constantly angry, yelling at everyone from her husband and adult son to store clerks. There is little plot in Hard Truths, but there is a trajectory. While Pansy seems like a harridan at first, she comes to be heartbreaking in her sadness, her fear of life, her sense of being persecuted by the world. Jean-Baptiste has an even better role than she did as an adopted daughter searching for her mother in Leigh's Secrets and Lies (1996), a quietly powerful turn that earned her an Oscar nomination. Here, she brings both dynamism and understanding to the prickliest of characters, in what is sure to be one of the best performances of the year. 

After two historical films, the underappreciated Peterloo (2018) and the dazzling Mr Turner (2014), Leigh returns to a contemporary setting, and in his typical fashion drops us into the lives of ordinary people. Pansy lives in a modest, comfortable house with her husband Curtley (David Webber), who owns a small plumbing company, and their son, Moses (Tuwaine Barrett), who rarely leaves his room. Moses clearly has emotional challenges in facing the world, but Pansy considers him a layabout and screams at him, "Don't you have any hopes and dreams">window._taboola = window._taboola || []; _taboola.push({ mode: 'alternating-thumbnails-a', container: 'taboola-below-article', placement: 'Below Article', target_type: 'mix' });