Film

Hard Truths (2024)

Mike Leigh

5/5

The devastation of depression

In this incredible film, Mike Leigh lays bare what living with depression means for the sufferer, Pansy, played with astonishing power and conviction by Marianne Jean-Baptiste, and for everyone else around her. This could be the best Mike Leigh film I have seen, because the gravity of the subject matter is matched by an even more unflinchingly minimal and direct approach than usual. There is no excess in this film, no fat on the bare bones of the script, no detail which is not absolutely necessary to the authenticity of the story. Although it inevitably makes for a painful viewing, it captivates you from the very start and releases you only when you have understood that there is no possible resolution.

The outward expression of Pansy’s depression is mainly violent and vitriolic verbal anger at everyone. Her anger bounces off others in a way that makes Pansy feel that she is only responding to harassment and intimidation, when in fact the slights are only perceived. Her hostile attribution bias taints absolutely everything and gives her no breathing space. She is able to expunge the poison at least with her constant verbal abuse of others, but it hits everyone around her, her husband and son, who suffer from some kind of secondary depression by association, her sister and her family, shop assistants, doctors and everyone else she meets.

The constant barrage of gut-punching anger is impossible for others to deal with. No response or kindness can reach Pansy through this wall of anger. Her sense of exhaustion which she often mentions when she runs out of steam is not only affecting her, but everyone around her, including the viewers. She will remind many people of some of their female family members, as her type of depression is one of the typically female responses to the powerlessness that is often the unavoidable destiny for many women.

Her husband Curtley and son Moses have retreated into total passivity and almost complete mutism, probably because they have learnt that responding only makes matters worse. The narrative culminates when Pansy realises, when Moses tells her that he bought her flowers for mother’s day, that he doesn’t hate her. This results in an explosion of manic laughter followed by sobbing. It is only a short-lived reprieve, although when she gets home Pansy makes a superhuman effort to put the flowers from Moses into a vase, before she retreats into depressed sleep again.

Pansy’s sister Chantelle, played with natural grace by Michele Austin, has a much more rewarding temperament. She is kind, sensitive, balanced, able to listen and laugh. Her two daughters are happy and able to negotiate setbacks in a healthy manner. She tries to help Pansy, to comfort her, to just reach her – to limited success. The contrast between Pansy and Chantelle reminds us that the propensity to develop depression is the luck of the draw.

There are many well calibrated moments of biting humour, but they only serve the purpose of underlining Pansy’s predicament. Pansy’s many phobias, her obsessions with cleanliness and manners no doubt have their hilarious side. She is intelligent and eloquent, so her rants always contain a grain of truth which makes them all the more poignant.

You feel that perhaps Moses may make it out of this somehow. There is a short silent scene when you see him from a distance reluctantly engaging in a conversation with a girl. Things are much more difficult for Curtley. He has hurt his back at work and although we don’t know what exactly that might mean for his income or job prospects, he is no longer young and it is clear that he will get no support from Pansy, in fact she may chuck him out on the street in one of her fits of rage.

Leigh’s film is fully in the service of a raw hyper realistic narrative. The dialogue is extremely well crafted and perfectly delivered. In Leigh’s films the cast develop the script through improvisation and character development which Leigh then whittles down and shapes, so the script creation is in essence very collaborative. This is surprising because the result is so lean, unified and concentrated, but that’s the magic of Mike Leigh’s films.

Silent scenes are also mesmerising and powerful. The minute shifts in mood are meticulously revealed leaving the viewer rapt by their logic and newly gained significance. None of this is of course new, these are all known and appreciated characteristics of Leigh’s films. What is different is that Leigh is focusing on mental illness, which is not directly related to social class or wealth, and for that reason perhaps this film may speak to a different audience.

The contrast between this film and the inane positivity of mainstream cinema could not be starker. Although you wish for a tiny ray of a possibility that there may be some hope, by the end you know that hope would be completely out of place and would spoil the raw self-contained purpose of this work.