Leigh includes some flashes of wit, so the film itself is not depressing. At a doctor’s office, Pansy is furious that she has to see a substitute for her usual physician, and is so volatile the doctor asks, “Are you okay?” Pansy snaps back, “No, I’m not okay, I’m at the doctor’s!” She has a point.
At times, we see Pansy become aware of her own emotional unsteadiness, which makes it all the more painful to witness. She dashes out of a furniture store after berating a salesperson for no reason, then sits in her car catching her breath. The distressed look on Jean-Baptiste’s face says that Pansy knows she is not okay. At their mother’s grave, she admits to her sister “I’m so scared”. But none of the well-intentioned people around her know what to do.
Although the family in Hard Truths is black, Leigh has pushed back on any idea that as a white man he might have been reluctant to tackle the inner lives of these characters. Talking to Vanity Fair he pointed to his many films, including the period pieces, that are about experiences foreign to his own. “It’s just about people. It’s about all of us in our good and less so good aspects,” he said. He and his cast have given us living, breathing, flawed but good people, in a stunning film full of heart and compassion.
★★★★★
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