Our world is filled with many scourges some of which like men fighting wars have been present since the beginning of time.
However, there are conflicts and difficulties of more recent impact. They were always there but not, as in our modern life, in the volume and availability to nearly all.
Problem gambling is an epidemic, so much so that advertising it carries a health warning similar to cigarettes.
Drug use, perhaps once the province of the privileged, ranges from accepted by many in the mainstream to people who will never escape their addiction.
Depression, included beneath the banner of mental health, is also present in epidemic proportions, much of it untreated due to lack of diagnosis and certainly limited by the cost and availability of help.
So in Mike Leigh’s Hard Truths (2024) we find Pansy (Marianne Jean-Baptiste), a London woman living in financial security with her plumber husband Curtley (David Webber) and adult son Moses (Tuwaine Barrett). Dysfunctional doesn’t even half describe them.
Their home is sterile and ruled by Pansy in a very unattractive way. She has narcissistic tendencies and hates herself so much that she takes it out on others.
Curtley goes to work and comes home. His small shed in the garden-less backyard a refuge; Moses sits in his room with earphones on and reads magazines. He goes for “his walks” to escape his life; Pansy, without foes at home, torments whoever she comes across. There are plenty of things to disgust her in the outside world.
Leigh shows confrontations at the doctor, the dentist, a furniture shop, the supermarket, the car park. Pansy’s glib tongue and critical nature have no filters. She says what she wants all the time.
Meanwhile we meet her younger sister Chantelle (Michele Austin), a hairdresser living with her two grown daughters. Here is happiness in a small London flat. All three have jobs which throw up their own challenges but they are all capable of facing them.
Chantelle loves Pansy and tries to help but just does not clearly see the torment her sister is in. It seems nobody in this small family unit does. It is obvious she is miserable but her behaviour appears to warrant no sympathy or at least no thought of getting her help. The cycle keeps turning.
This comes to a head when Chantelle insists Pansy accompany her to their mother’s grave on Mother’s Day. It seems their father must have bolted because Mum went to work and left Pansy to mind Chantelle. It’s a familiar story and Pansy is resentful that their mother criticised her while she was doing her best as a child rearing an even younger child.
When the two return to Chantelle’s flat for lunch with all the family, Pansy is so depressed she keeps her coat on and hugs her handbag to her breast as the others are serving food. The realisation hits Chantelle hard. Her sister is sick but she doesn’t know how to snap her out of it. Curtley looks on helpless.
He too has his demons. Chantelle asks a simple question about his mother. Curtley stays mute.
It is this that triggers Pansy into rage when they return home. For all her depressed behaviour at the lunch, it is Curtley’s refusal to answer Chantelle’s question that she sees as the big problem.
The film ends when Curtley badly injures his back at work. He is brought home by offsider Virgil and sits in the kitchen. Virgil goes upstairs, wakes Pansy from a sleep and leaves. Curtley calls out for Pansy to come and help him but she sits on the floor unmoved.
So caught up in her own sadness, she cannot help anyone. Confronting someone in as much or worse pain than her, she is frozen.
This is a good film, well acted and tightly directed. However, its length – 97 minutes – was criticised as too long by my fellow filmgoers. It isn’t much fun but it is good.
3.0
I WRIGHT 