---
title: "Hard Truths"
year: 2024
kind: "film"
canonical: "https://film.one/film/hard-truths"
fi1m_id: "hard-truths"
imdb_id: "tt11891850"
tmdb_id: 1013154
wikidata_id: "Q124537378"
fi1m_score: 84
critics_score: 84
critics_reviews: 21
published: "2026-09-09"
updated: "2026-09-18T08:37:55.206760+00:00"
region: "US"
licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL."
---

# Hard Truths (2024)

Directed by Mike Leigh · 1h 37m · MPA R · Drama, Comedy

## Identity

Hard Truths

- **Canonical:** https://film.one/film/hard-truths
- **Type:** Film
- **Fi1m ID:** hard-truths
- **IMDb ID:** tt11891850
- **TMDB ID:** 1013154
- **Wikidata ID:** Q124537378
- **Same entity:** https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11891850/, https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/1013154, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q124537378

**Fi1m score: 84** · Critics 84 from 21 reviews

*In a sentence:* A spotless house, a silent husband, and a woman shouting at a dentist so she does not have to cry

> Marianne Jean-Baptiste is ferocious and then unbearably sad as a woman who cannot stop attacking everyone she meets. Mike Leigh’s film around her is spare, funny and honest, and a little thin where the men are concerned. We recommend it warmly.

## Synopsis

Pansy (Marianne Jean-Baptiste) lives in a spotless London house with her husband Curtley (David Webber), a plumber who has stopped answering back, and their grown son Moses (Tuwaine Barrett), who does not work and spends his days walking. Pansy is angry with everything: the dentist, the woman on the checkout, a stranger in a car park, a dog that looks at her. Her sister Chantelle (Michele Austin) runs a hairdressing salon, laughs with her clients and her two daughters, Kayla (Ani Nelson) and Aleisha (Sophia Brown), and keeps trying to bring Pansy back into the family. Mike Leigh writes and directs, following the two households through the weeks before Mother’s Day.

## Review

Pansy wakes up screaming. That is how Mike Leigh begins, with a woman jolting upright in a clean, bright bedroom as though she has been dropped there, and it sets the day. Over the next hour and a half she will find fault with a dentist, a shop assistant, a woman on a supermarket checkout and a man in a car park who has done nothing but stand near her car. She lives with Curtley (David Webber), a plumber who has learned not to answer, and Moses (Tuwaine Barrett), a grown son who leaves the house each morning to walk and says almost nothing to anyone. *Hard Truths* is Leigh’s first film set in the present day since *Another Year* in 2010, and he has come back to it with his method intact: no script on paper until the actors have built the people.

We liked it a great deal, and we recommend it with one caveat, which is that it is a film about a performance and the film around the performance is thin in places. Marianne Jean-Baptiste, whom Leigh last directed in [*Secrets & Lies*](https://film.one/film/secrets-and-lies) in 1996, plays Pansy at full volume from the first scene and still finds room to go further. Every complaint has its own logic. She wants to know why a baby needs pockets. She resents a dog for grinning at her. She is not stupid and she is not wrong about everything, which is what makes her so hard to be near.

We laughed a great deal for the first twenty minutes, and then Leigh cut to Pansy back in bed in the afternoon with the duvet pulled to her chin and the curtains open, and the laughing stopped. That is the film’s shape: a joke, and then the cost of it. Nobody on screen knows what is wrong with her, and Leigh will not tell us.

Dick Pope lights the house flat and even, with nothing on the walls and every surface wiped, and Suzie Davies has furnished it like a show home nobody moved into: a sofa with the cushions squared, a kitchen with no food left out. Chantelle’s flat and salon are the opposite, crowded with people and colour and something always on the go. Jacqueline Durran dresses Pansy in beige and grey and a buttoned coat and her sister in prints, so you can tell who is happy from across the street. Gary Yershon’s score is a few bars of strings between scenes and nothing inside them; the rooms are left with the sound of Pansy’s voice. Tania Reddin cuts the tirades so that we watch the victim as much as the attacker, a checkout girl or a dentist deciding whether to answer, and the pauses are where the comedy lives.

Michele Austin is the other half of the film, and the salon scenes are its pleasure. Her clients (Jo Martin and Llewella Gideon among them) talk over one another about men and mothers while she works, and her daughters Kayla (Ani Nelson) and Aleisha (Sophia Brown) come and go with jobs and complaints of their own. Austin plays a woman who has decided to love her sister whatever it costs, and the scenes where she keeps ringing, keeps inviting, keeps saying yes to a woman who says no to everything moved us more than any of the rants did. The film is finally about the two of them.

The men are the problem. Webber and Barrett are given almost nothing to say, and Leigh has made that a choice, but a choice is not the same as a character; we know as little about Curtley at the end as at the start, and Moses’s long walks through the city are handsomely photographed and lead nowhere in particular. The second half gathers the family for Mother’s Day and takes a turn we will not describe, except to say that anyone waiting for a diagnosis, a cause or a cure will not get one. Most critics have been warm, and one found the whole thing too bleak to sit through. We think the refusal to explain is the honest thing, and also that it leaves the last quarter of an hour feeling slightly unfinished.

It is 97 minutes and a 12A. Watch it with a sibling if you have one. You will both think of someone, and it will not be the same person.

*Fi1m score 84, published 9 September 2026.*

## What the critics say

The reviews for Hard Truths agree on where the film lives: in Marianne Jean-Baptiste’s performance as Pansy, a woman whose hostility to everyone around her is, most critics decide, a cover for grief and fear. Almost every notice singles her out, and several call it the role of her career. Praise for Mike Leigh clusters around his refusal to condescend to a difficult character and his return to the small-scale, contemporary domestic drama of his earlier work; the swing between comedy and devastation, sometimes within a single scene, is noted approvingly and often.

Reservations are few and mild. Variety finds the story slender beneath the performance, The Hollywood Reporter places it in the middle of Leigh’s output rather than at the top, and one or two critics mention an ending that leaves questions open. The sole outright dissent comes from Deadline, which finds the film bleak and short on hope while still admiring the lead. The spread is narrow.

## Straight answers

**Is Hard Truths worth watching?**

*Hard Truths* is worth watching for anyone who can sit with a very angry woman for 97 minutes and wait to see what is underneath, and we scored it 84. Marianne Jean-Baptiste is ferocious and then unbearably sad, and the salon scenes with Michele Austin are the film's pleasure. The husband and son are thinly drawn, and nobody explains Pansy, which is the point.

**How long is Hard Truths, and what is it rated?**

*Hard Truths* runs 1h 37m and is rated R by the MPA in the US. It is a drama and comedy film.

**Where can I watch Hard Truths in the US?**

*Hard Truths* is streaming on Hulu, The Roku Channel, Amazon Prime Video and Paramount+ in the US, and it is also available to rent from Amazon Prime Video from $4.99. Availability is checked daily; the links above go straight to each service.

**How violent or frightening is Hard Truths, and is it suitable for children?**

*Hard Truths* is a 12A in the UK and contains no violence to speak of; its discomfort comes from Pansy shouting at strangers, family and a dentist. It is not frightening, but it is bleak in stretches and slow for children, who will find little in it. Teenagers and adults who can take a difficult family will manage it fine.

**How does Hard Truths compare to Secrets & Lies?**

*Hard Truths* is the sparer and more uncomfortable of the two Mike Leigh films with Marianne Jean-Baptiste, and [*Secrets & Lies*](https://film.one/film/secrets-and-lies) the warmer and fuller. The earlier film gives its whole family something to say and spells out feelings we have already grasped; the later one refuses to explain its central woman at all. Start with *Secrets & Lies* if you want to be moved, *Hard Truths* if you want to be unsettled.

**What should I watch after Hard Truths?**

After *Hard Truths*, try [*Secrets & Lies*](https://film.one/film/secrets-and-lies) (1996, Fi1m 88): Leigh and Jean-Baptiste the first time round, and a family secret told over a cup of tea. Then [*A Woman Under the Influence*](https://film.one/film/a-woman-under-the-influence) (1974, Fi1m 86): Gena Rowlands coming apart in a kitchen while everyone pretends not to notice; and [*The Son's Room*](https://film.one/film/the-sons-room) (2001, Fi1m 82): Nanni Moretti on grief that will not be talked into shape; quiet, exact, hard to shake.

### Reviews we read (30)

- **Little White Lies**, Mark Asch (4/5/5): The critic calls the film a searing portrait of a woman on the brink that does incredible things in small, measured strokes. Pansy is highlighted as one of the most fascinating and rich characters in any film this century. [Read](https://lwlies.com/reviews/hard-truths)
- **RogerEbert.com**, Glenn Kenny (95/100, inferred): Leigh's tragi-comedy is one of the very few great films of 2024, a character study of near-febrile vitality. The film singles out Marianne Jean-Baptiste's dazzling, compassionate performance as the pain-driven Pansy for particular praise. [Read](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/hard-truths-film-review-2024)
- **The i Paper**, Christina Newland (90/100, inferred): The critic deems the film magnificent and praises its unapologetic focus on a prickly, difficult human being with empathy and skill. Marianne Jean-Baptiste’s towering, real performance is singled out as formidable and heartbreaking. [Read](https://inews.co.uk/culture/film/hard-truths-is-magnificent-oscars-got-it-wrong-review-3504420)
- **Slant Magazine**, Cole Kronman (3.5/4): The critic offers a compassionate portrait of a woman on the brink, praising Marianne Jean-Baptiste for channeling an anger that feels excruciatingly real and Leigh's willingness to meet characters at eye level without condescension. [Read](https://www.slantmagazine.com/film/hard-truths-review-marianne-jean-baptiste-mike-leigh/)
- **Evening Standard**, Martin Robinson (85/100, inferred): The review calls the film harrowing and hilarious, centred on a staggering lead performance by Marianne Jean-Baptiste as a ferocious and funny curmudgeon. Leigh is celebrated for returning to core territory of portraying ordinary lives with a huge sympathetic heart. [Read](https://www.standard.co.uk/culture/film/hard-truths-review-marianne-jeanbaptiste-b1207647.html)
- **Film Comment**, José Teodoro (85/100, inferred): The film stands as Mike Leigh’s finest work since Happy-Go-Lucky, a character study of an agitated, phobia-addled woman whose rants mix comedy and pathos rooted in unarticulated grief. The critic singles out the whiplash shifts from comedy to devastation and the director’s attention to silences and changing minds in dialogue scenes. [Read](https://www.filmcomment.com/love-and-death-tiff-2024/)
- **The New Yorker**, Justin Chang (85/100, inferred): Leigh's blisteringly funny and crushingly sad new movie features Jean-Baptiste giving the performance of the year as the profoundly unhappy Pansy. The film is singled out for its entertaining viciousness and bruised exhilaration alongside its emotional egalitarianism. [Read](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025/01/13/hard-truths-movie-review)
- **Vulture**, Bilge Ebiri (85/100, inferred): The critic deems it marvelous and a welcome return for Leigh, praising Marianne Jean-Baptiste's transcendent performance as a woman whose pathological hostility masks deep fear and anxiety, while noting the film's hilarious yet unnerving tone. [Read](https://www.vulture.com/article/hard-truths-review-mike-leigh-is-back.html)
- **IndieWire**, David Ehrlich (B+): The critic highlights Marianne Jean-Baptiste's colossal performance as a woman at war with the world in this spiky, small drama that serves as the polar opposite of Happy-Go-Lucky. It praises the film's sharp take on family dynamics and Leigh's direction. [Read](https://www.indiewire.com/criticism/movies/hard-truths-review-mike-leigh-marianne-jean-baptiste-1235044173/)
- **The AV Club**, Jason Gorber (B+): The critic calls it a classic Mike Leigh drama without compromise, praising Marianne Jean-Baptiste's astonishing, nuanced turn as a force of acerbic misery and the film's rewarding exploration of family, grief, and acceptance. [Read](https://www.avclub.com/hard-truths-review)
- **Empire**, Laura Venning (80/100, inferred): The review describes the film as gruelling but ultimately rewarding, with Leigh at his most confrontational and humane. Jean-Baptiste’s astonishing, career-redefining performance as a woman in crisis is highlighted as the film’s powerful core. [Read](https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/hard-truths/)
- **Los Angeles Times**, Amy Nicholson (80/100, inferred): Leigh's misanthropic drama is a puckeringly sour delight that turns time with the most insufferable woman into time well spent. Jean-Baptiste's flamethrower performance as the rage-filled Pansy is singled out as the film's burning core. [Read](https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/movies/story/2025-01-09/hard-truths-review-mike-leigh-marianne-jean-baptiste-michele-austin)
- **Radio Times** (4/5): The critic calls it a poignant character study that excels at revealing deep-rooted issues through an unlikeable yet empathetic lead. Jean-Baptiste’s performance is highlighted as greatly empathetic and full of guile. [Read](https://www.radiotimes.com/movies/hard-truths-review/)
- **The Independent** (80/100, inferred): The critic finds the film makes you laugh and cry, highlighting a titanic performance from Marianne Jean-Baptiste as a vessel of formless rage. Leigh is praised for rendering small beauties out of the ordinary and revealing the soul inside a difficult character. [Read](https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/hard-truths-review-mike-leigh-b2687533.html)
- **Time Out** (4/5): The critic describes the film as a pungent-but-poignant character study of a woman stuck in anger and resentment. Jean-Baptiste’s remarkable performance is singled out for creating a richly drawn character with deep empathy. [Read](https://www.timeout.com/movies/hard-truths-review-2024)
- **Screen Daily**: The critic finds the film an emotionally trenchant piece that echoes Leigh’s earlier work while offering a superb central performance. Jean-Baptiste’s portrayal of a rebarbative yet intriguing woman is singled out for making her grimly comic and compelling. [Read](https://www.screendaily.com/reviews/hard-truths-san-sebastian-review/5197403.article)
- **Sight and Sound**: The critic praises Mike Leigh’s empathetic tragicomedy for its focus on a hostile yet fragile woman and celebrates the director’s irreplaceable place in British cinema. Jean-Baptiste’s fearless lead performance and the film’s blend of comedy and pain are singled out as highlights. [Read](https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/reviews/hard-truths-mike-leighs-graceful-tragicomedy-shows-how-irreplaceable-he-british-cinema)
- **The Guardian**, Peter Bradshaw: Marianne Jean-Baptiste gives an exceptional performance as a woman in the terrifying endgame of depression. The film is a deeply sober and compassionate drama about a black British family, with flashes of fun, returning Leigh to his classic contemporary style. [Read](https://www.theguardian.com/film/article/2024/sep/07/hard-truths-review-a-mike-leigh-classic-of-day-to-day-disillusionment-and-courage)
- **The Hollywood Reporter**, Jon Frosch: The critic finds it a solid, mid-tier Mike Leigh film boosted by a bravura performance from Marianne Jean-Baptiste as a perpetually hostile woman whose anger alienates her family. It praises the vivid portrait of psychic pain, collateral damage, and flashes of humor and tenderness. [Read](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-reviews/hard-truths-review-marianne-jean-baptiste-mike-leigh-1235993190/)
- **The Telegraph**: Anchored by Marianne Jean-Baptiste’s incendiary performance, this is a scorching family drama of depression, rage and love that is biting and bleakly witty. [Read](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/films/0/hard-truths-london-film-festival-mike-leigh-review/)
- **The Times**, Ed Potton (★★★★☆): Mike Leigh is back on form in this gruelling tale with a bilious protagonist brought to life by Marianne Jean-Baptiste’s ferocious performance. It reminds viewers of the importance of asking why someone may be behaving badly. [Read](https://www.thetimes.com/culture/film/article/hard-truths-review-mike-leigh-movie-kh8c8t6gh)
- **Variety**, Peter Debruge (Critic's Pick): Leigh builds a prickly but fair micro-portrait around Jean-Baptiste, giving her the role of her career even if the story is slender. The film is singled out for its profound poetry in every scene and the way observation of Pansy may shift how we see the world. [Read](https://variety.com/2024/film/reviews/hard-truths-review-marianne-jean-baptiste-1236132683/)
- **NME**, Nick Levine (5/5): The film is a quietly heartbreaking yet funny portrait that reveals much about the human condition through its depiction of everyday life. The critic singles out Marianne Jean-Baptiste’s tremendous, award-worthy performance as the angry yet depressed Pansy for praise. [Read](https://www.nme.com/reviews/film-reviews/hard-truths-review-mike-leigh-marianne-jean-baptiste-3832292)
- **Collider**, Ross Bonaime (85/100, inferred): The critic praises Mike Leigh's intimate family drama for its sharp character work and Marianne Jean-Baptiste's standout performance as the rage-filled Pansy, calling it one of the year's best. The film is seen as a strong return to Leigh's signature style of building complex worlds through actors, even as it leaves some emotional truths open-ended. [Read](https://collider.com/hard-truths-review-mike-leigh/)
- **The Wrap**, Steve Pond (85/100, inferred): The film is an extraordinarily moving and wrenching gem that creates deep empathy for its difficult central character. Leigh's subtle, intimate approach and the performances, especially Jean-Baptiste's, are singled out for praise. [Read](https://www.thewrap.com/hard-truths-review-mike-leigh/)
- **Eye for Film**, Amber Wilkinson (80/100, inferred): The critic finds the film starts funny with Pansy's rants but reveals her mental health struggles, singling out Jean-Baptiste's tragicomic tour-de-force performance as the standout element that draws viewers into her difficult life. [Read](https://www.eyeforfilm.co.uk/review/hard-truths-2024-film-review-by-amber-wilkinson)
- **The Skinny**, Philip Concannon (4/5): The terse, blunt film offers a frustrating yet heartbreaking portrait of chronic unhappiness and isolation without easy catharsis or diagnosis. The critic singles out Jean-Baptiste’s astonishingly vivid performance for revealing the pain behind the belligerence. [Read](https://www.theskinny.co.uk/film/new-releases/hard-truths)
- **Deadline**, Pete Hammond (40/100, inferred): The film is a bleak and depressing look at a thoroughly unlikable character with little hope or redemption. Jean-Baptiste's magnificent performance is singled out for praise amid the overall sadness. [Read](https://deadline.com/2024/09/hard-truths-review-marianne-jean-baptiste-mike-leigh-toronto-film-festival-1236079783/)
- **Paste**, Nadira Begum (8.9): The review calls Hard Truths Mike Leigh's best film in more than a decade, highlighting its empathetic portrait of post-COVID isolation and mental health struggles through a strong Black British cast. Jean-Baptiste's complex, heartbreaking lead performance anchors the film's sincere slice-of-life approach. [Read](https://www.pastemagazine.com/movies/mike-leigh/hard-truths-review-mike-leigh-best-film-marianne-jean-baptiste-michele-austin)
- **The Playlist**, Gregory Ellwood (A-/B+): The critic praises Marianne Jean-Baptiste's powerhouse performance as the angry, unhappy Pansy, highlighting how it makes the character unforgettable and haunting. They note the film's ambiguous ending leaves questions unanswered but emphasizes the emotional impact. [Read](https://theplaylist.net/hard-truths-review-marianne-jean-baptiste-unleashes-a-fury-in-mike-leighs-family-drama-tiff-20240908/)

## Details

- **Director:** Mike Leigh
- **Director:** Mike Leigh
- **Writer:** Mike Leigh
- **Cinematography:** Dick Pope
- **Editor:** Tania Reddin
- **Music:** Gary Yershon
- **Production design:** Suzie Davies
- **Costume design:** Jacqueline Durran
- **Producer:** Georgina Lowe
- **Cast:** Marianne Jean-Baptiste as Pansy; Michele Austin as Chantelle; David Webber as Curtley; Tuwaine Barrett as Moses; Ani Nelson as Kayla; Sophia Brown as Aleisha; Jonathan Livingstone as Virgil; Jo Martin as Nurse Salon Client
- **Runtime:** 1h 37m
- **Certificate (MPA):** R
- **Release (the US):** 10 January 2025
- **Genres:** Drama, Comedy
- **Box office:** $718,850
- **Trailer:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nftgaoHrEDk

## Where to watch in the US

- Hulu: add-on, hd
- The Roku Channel: add-on, hd
- Amazon Prime Video: add-on, uhd
- Paramount+: add-on
- Amazon Prime Video: rent $4.99, uhd
- Amazon Prime Video: buy $9.99, uhd

*Checked 2026-09-10.*

Also available in: CA, GB, IE, KR, NL, TR, US. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country.

## If you liked this

- *Secrets & Lies* (1996), Fi1m 88: Leigh and Jean-Baptiste the first time round, and a family secret told over a cup of tea. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/secrets-and-lies.md)
- *A Woman Under the Influence* (1974), Fi1m 86: Gena Rowlands coming apart in a kitchen while everyone pretends not to notice. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/a-woman-under-the-influence.md)
- *Tokyo Sonata* (2008): A Japanese household where nobody tells anybody anything, and the silence does the damage.
- *Rocks* (2019): East London girls holding a family together when the adults have stopped; warm and unsentimental.
- *The Son's Room* (2001), Fi1m 82: Nanni Moretti on grief that will not be talked into shape; quiet, exact, hard to shake. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/the-sons-room.md)

---
© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/film/hard-truths