Mike Leigh and the barbs of married life, without a script

Hard Truths , Mike Leigh's new film , is a chamber piece that focuses on the interior spaces and dynamics of a suburban London family dominated by matriarch Pansy (Marianne Jean-Baptiste), a middle-aged, argumentative, irascible—in a word, unbearable—woman. Pansy seethes in the face of her husband Curtley's (David Webber) silence and her son Moses's (Tuwaine Barrett) apathy, who doesn't even dare lift a finger. When she goes out, she's intolerant of everything that moves. She spares neither doctors nor supermarket employees. The character's unhappiness is profound and unfathomable, but that doesn't stop her from playing the tragicomedy—"and isn't that how life is, both comic and tragic?" asks the Manchester filmmaker later.

Marianne Jean-Baptiste, who was unforgettable in Secrets and Lies (Palme d'Or at Cannes 1996, with Francis Ford Coppola presiding over the jury; a film nominated for an Oscar five times), is once again at the center of a powerful collective performance generated by the lengthy demands of rehearsals with the actors and the organic way in which the characters are constructed. We also spoke about this with Mike Leigh last September, in an interview in a room at the Hotel Maria Cristina in San Sebastián, during the Basque Film Festival, just days after the film's world premiere across the Atlantic in Toronto (Cannes declined, nor did Venice).

In Portugal, there hadn't been a Mike Leigh film in theaters for over a decade, since the release of Mr. Turner (2014). His next work, also a period piece, Peterloo (2018), ended up in the streaming labyrinth – and deserved better luck. Seven years and a pandemic later, here comes Hard Truths , a new chapter from a filmmaker who knows how to shape disenchantment like few others. Mike Leigh would correct us if he read us: that's just how life is, disenchantment is just a part of it.

[the trailer for “Hard Truths”:]

You once said that every person you pass on the street is a potential character of yours, but this has nothing to do with your work process, which has been refined film by film, decade by decade, right? The idea for a film and the construction of a character are very different things. What I initially do with my actors is ask them for a varied list of real people they know, whether they're family, friends, loved ones, or hated people. Then I choose two or three names from each list. We continue to develop this, without even imagining what the character is or what will happen. From the amalgamation of these two or three real sources, a very tenuous outline of the character begins to emerge. Only later does the character begin to take on a three-dimensional form. This process is slow. In a subsequent stage, we explore the character's life down to the smallest detail in her relationships with the other characters. In the case of Hard Truths , for example, we have the two sisters.

This is the practical procedure, so to speak. Which, for me, is vital as a creative process. It's how the characters come to life. My actors agree to come into the project without the slightest idea of the film we're going to make. I myself don't know what I'm going to film; there's no story. This is essentially the agreement we have. The excitement and stimulation come from here. Obviously, when I look at the actors as I begin to imagine the characters' possibilities, I follow intuitions and notions related to things that concern me in life. I keep certain things the actors bring to the characters, I reject others. I usually get more than I leave out. Ultimately, my films are built on these interactions. It's a creative method that, when you look at it, isn't so different from the method of any other artist who writes, paints, or composes. I progressively commit myself to a process of discovery, searching for a truth.

Speaking of things that worry you in life: Pansy, played by Marianne Jean-Baptiste, lives in pain. She's always angry. She's especially harsh with her husband and son. She can't find peace with the world. She's restless. Why does a character like this interest you? To be honest with you, the answer to the question lies in your own detailed observation of the character. Pansy doesn't suffer from an unusual syndrome. That's the answer. Many of us human beings live this way. We're not talking about some obscure condition without resonating with us. Pansy isn't obscure or esoteric. She's a woman, but she could have been a man. Pansy grew up this way, just as she does in the film, but we all know her or have crossed paths with her at some point in our lives. However, if I want to answer your question on a completely different level, I suppose I should talk about Marianne Jean-Baptiste.