“Hard Truths,” the latest film from Mike Leigh, could easily have been called “Hurt People.” And we all know what hurt people do.
Marianne Jean-Baptiste is Pansy, a middle-aged housewife living in London whose name belies her personality. Pansy is perpetually angry, and she directs her rage at her husband and her son for every little thing, from wearing shoes indoors to filling up the kettle with too much water. Her husband, Curtley (David Webber), a plumber, takes it all in with an exhausted grimace. At one point, her 22-year-old son, Moses (Tuwaine Barrett), angrily gives his mother the finger, but only after she has left his room.
Her family gets the worst of it, but no one is spared from Pansy’s wrath. The insults just flow, the most pithy being, perhaps, “Fix your face,” which is addressed to a woman behind her on line at the grocery store.
Why is Pansy so angry? That is, in many ways, the raison d’etre of this film. It is possible she is clinically depressed. After a particularly vicious episode, she is seen shaking behind the wheel of her car. She needs help (and probably medication), but mostly she just suffers on her own. The only person who really tries to help is her sister Chantelle (Michele Austin), who is Pansy’s opposite. She is full of joy and love for life, as are her two grown daughters.
How can two people, who grew up in the same home, be so radically different? That’s another question the film seeks to explore. Their mother died five years before and the film centers around a trip to visit her grave. Chantelle organizes the trip, but Pansy is reluctant to go. Slowly we learn why. While Chantelle is devoted to her mother, who raised two girls largely on her own, Pansy is still nursing some wounds. In one particularly revealing moment, she says of her mother, “She was always criticizing me.”
Do hurt people always hurt people, or is there a way to escape the cycle? Chantelle found a way out, but Pansy did not. Who knows why? It is not surprising that Chantelle’s children are both happy and employed, while Pansy’s son, Moses, is living at home, unemployed and deeply withdrawn from the world.
There is a moment when Pansy seems to achieve a breakthrough. In a deeply moving scene, she breaks down, crying and exhausted, as her sister gazes on her with love. “I don’t understand you but I love you,” Chantelle says. But is her love enough to save Pansy?
The film ends on an ambivalent note, one that conveys a longing for human connection. Such has long been the case for Leigh. In his first film, from 1972, a young woman caring for her disabled sister tries, but fails, to connect with a potential suitor. One extended scene between them is particularly excruciating and earns the film its title, “Bleak Moments.”
Marianne Jean-Baptiste has won accolades for her performance as Pansy, but she was not nominated for an Oscar. Kyle Buchanan at The New York Times suggested this was because voters just didn’t like her character. It’s a fair complaint. Pansy is hard to be around. Why spend 90 minutes with someone who is so angry and bitter?
Two possible reasons: For one, it can open our hearts to the angry people in our own lives. People who are bitter are usually dealing with their own demons. We may not be able to heal them, but we can offer them a smile or a kind word. This can be especially hard with family members, but Chantelle offers a model. We can love people even when we don’t understand them.
Sitting with Pansy can also reveal the bitterness in our own hearts. She is an extreme case, but who among us has not lashed out at another when we are hurting?
In “Dilexit Nos,” his encyclical on the Sacred Heart, Pope Francis writes that the “interior reality of each person is frequently concealed behind a great deal of ‘foliage,’ which makes it difficult for us not only to understand ourselves, but even more to know others.” One advantage of spending 90 minutes with Pansy is that there is very little foliage hiding her true feelings. Her emotions are plain for everyone to see.
The truth is that in my heart we can be just as mean and judgmental as Pansy—we just do a better job of hiding it. The question is whether we can be more like Chantelle, meeting life with a smile and a laugh, even when it lets us down.
