Marianne Jean-Baptiste delivers a powerful performance in "Hard Truths"

By The Real Perspectives

Published on January 13, 2025

Hard Truths is the powerful British drama from Bleecker Street Media that premiered nationally in theaters on January 10. The film stars Marianne Jean-Baptiste as Pansy, a woman suffering from chronic depression, unhappy with everything and everyone in her life. The film follows how her mental struggles impact her family and those closest around her.

Written and directed by Mike Leigh (Secrets and Lies, Ms. Turner), Hard Truths first premiered at the 49th Toronto International Film Festival in September 2024 and was met with critical acclaim for Jean-Baptiste's performance. The film reunites Jean-Baptiste with Leigh, who directed her Oscar-nominated performance in Secrets and Lies.

The official synopsis reads Marianne Jean-Baptiste is 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.

The series stars:

• Marianne Jean-Baptiste as Pansy Deacon

• Michele Austin as Chantelle

• David Webber as Curtley Deacon

• Tuwaine Barrett as Moses Deacon

• Ani Nelson as Kayla

• Sophia Brown as Aleisha

• Jonathan Livingstone as Virgil

• Samantha Spiro as Nicole

Bleecker Street - Ani Nelson, Michele Austin, Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Tuwaine Barrett, Sophia Brown, David Webber

Jean-Baptiste gives a riveting, award-winning performance and delivers emotional pathos in what can be described as utterly mesmerizing. The film depicts what it's like for Pansy to be buried in years of trauma fueled by her mother's death with insurmountable layers of grief and pain and uses those emotions as a weapon upon those she loves the most - her husband, son, and sister. The film aptly portrays grief with no easy fixes. It juxtaposes how Pansy, who is perpetually angry, can be seen as just an angry, bitter woman without a cause, never bothering to look deep within the complexities of her issues. Compared to her sister, who arguably suffered the same grief, she chooses to rise above to be a sunshine of optimism with her two daughters. The former not only lashes out, but through cause and effect, her unhappiness makes both her husband's and son's lives miserable in the process.

After both sisters visit the cemetery on the anniversary of their mother's death, a catalyst moment unfolds, as does many moments in the film that gives insight into who Pansy is.

Hard Truths is not a happy movie. It does not provide rainbows and sunshine, what it does offer is brutal honesty through Leigh's acute direction on how one suffers through years of pain and misery without healing and without having the right tools to cope with grief. It is an excellent film that makes us think and reminds us of the powerful actor Jean-Baptiste truly is.  

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Hard Truths is currently playing in theaters.

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