Marianne Jean-Baptiste in Mike Leigh's drama

In the pantheon of unlikeable screen heroines, Pansy Deacon is more than noteworthy. Played by a ferocious Marianne Jean-Baptiste, the perpetually tormented and hostile protagonist of Mike Leigh's film Hard truths He spits his venom on everyone he meets: from family members to furniture store clerks and every unfortunate character in between.

Leaving us with someone so spectacularly unlikeable for 97 minutes may seem like a cruel trick, and the film will test the patience of viewers who prefer their main characters to be closer to the sympathetic end of the spectrum. But fans of the British auteur will recognize Leigh’s characteristic generosity in his latest, along with his willingness to show people at their worst. With this biting, penetrating new film, the writer-director presents an intriguing challenge, pushing the limits of our empathy and asking us to look, really look, at someone we would surely look away from if we were unfortunate enough to cross paths with him in real life.

Spending time with Pansy as she seethes and suffers, scolds and bullies, is by turns exhausting, bitterly funny and, at times, enlightening. Whether her barking is worse than her biting is a matter of debate, but part of the film’s provocative humanistic resonance is its insistence that evil is born of pain and, as such, worthy of compassion.

Questions of sympathy aside, it's nice to find the director back on contemporary ground after Mr. Turner AND Peterlootwo consecutive forays into 19th-century English history. Hard truths This isn't the Mike Leigh of the first order: it's tidier, more schematic, less expansive than his best. But this is still a vivid, superbly acted and directed portrait of psychic pain and its collateral damage, filled with jolts of humor and little brushstrokes of tenderness.

The film is also the latest report in a career-long investigation into the concept of happiness: who accesses it, who doesn't, how and why, the intersecting roles of structural realities (class and status), personal choices, temperament, and plain old luck. Hard truths It really seems to be in direct and contrapuntal dialogue with two of Leigh's classics: Happy and carefreein which Sally Hawkins' Poppy (like Pansy, a flowery name starting with the letter “P”) wears her blissful mood and radical optimism like armour; and Another yearwhich follows a happy married couple and the lost souls that orbit around them.

Here, race is an additional element, largely implied, hinted at, not dwelt upon, as a possible factor in Pansy's anguish. And while some might bristle at a white director delving into the dysfunction of a British Jamaican family, the director avoids the obvious pitfalls by playing it straight; Hard truths It lacks the farcical edge of Leigh's earlier domestic dramatic comedies such as Life is sweetor the vein of condescension that tormented the poor unfortunates All or nothingIt’s the work of someone who, at 81, is still looking for new ways to explore the world and the fascinating and frustrating people who inhabit it.

Jean-Baptiste Leigh's last film was Secrets and Liesin which her Hortense was the composed, patient yin to Brenda Blethyn's drunken, whining yang. Pansy, her mouth turned down in a permanent frown, her eyes always darting in search of fresh indignation, is Hortense's temperamental opposite. Life, for her, is a series of indignities and annoyances, the smallest of which unleashes her ire: a banana peel left on the kitchen counter of the terraced house she shares with her beleaguered husband Curtley (David Webber) and their overweight, withdrawn 22-year-old son Moses (Tuwaine Barrett); pigeons cooing in the yard; and, God forbid, anyone who wakes her from a nap. For every legitimate complaint, such as “police harassing black kids,” there's a litany of more petty complaints (charity workers asking for donations, the way a neighbor's child is dressed, etc.)

When Pansy ventures out, she is at war with the world. As staged by Leigh and played by Jean-Baptiste, clashes with other customers at the supermarket, with a sofa saleswoman, with a doctor and a dentist become mini tours de force of rage and defensive bad faith. Pansy’s nastiness is comical, her insults have a flowery, almost literary quality: said doctor is “a mouse in glasses who squeaks at me”; a long-necked woman who dares stand up to Pansy is an “ostrich” and, moments later, “a piece of string.” But her temperament is also frightening, an explosive manifestation of both psychological (depression, anxiety, OCD) and physical (migraines, jaw pain, intestinal problems) pathologies.

Just when you think you can’t take much more of Pansy’s harangues or Curtis and Moses’s whining (read: 15 minutes of film), Leigh introduces another key character: Pansy’s younger sister Chantelle (the wonderful Michele Austin), a hairdresser who is as warm and good-natured as Pansy is snide and testy. The scenes of Chantelle braiding hair while presiding over the salon’s gossipy chatter about dates and diets, dreams and work shifts are a delightful antidote to Pansy’s tirades, tempering the story’s harshness with some much-needed humor and light.

While Curtley and Moses tiptoe around Pansy's nastiness, Chantelle engages, shaking off her more ridiculous riffs, coaxing her out of her angry moments, and gently reminding her that their bond is unconditional. The two women don't get along, per se, but their fractious interaction has a comfortable, long-rehearsed music of its own. Leigh and her actors bring this relationship, shaped by childhood trauma, simmering resentments, and weary devotion, to perfectly persuasive life.

Leigh also offers glimpses into Chantelle’s daily life as a single mother to two bright, lively adult daughters, Aleisha (Sophia Brown) and Kayla (Ani Nelson). The close-knit trio share a small apartment that’s as lived-in as Pansy’s spacious home is sterile. Their defiant cheerfulness and enthusiasm create an even more—perhaps overly—pointing contrast to the melancholy of Pansy’s family.

The thematic framework of Hard truths is, as in many of Leigh's films, readable to the point of being obvious. “Why can't you enjoy your life?” Chantelle asks Pansy at one point. “I don't know!” Pansy replies, and while Leigh never claims to have a definitive explanation, a graveside scene in the film's second half reveals bits of backstory and revealing insights. Echoing Secrets and LiesThings come to a head during a seemingly celebratory meal: in this case, a Mother's Day lunch at Chantelle's house, where these characters' wounds and their moving, stubborn refusal to give up on each other are exposed.

Leigh, whose deep improvisational preparation process with her cast is legendary (and multi-faceted), gets glorious performances from her leading ladies. Jean-Baptiste is in full-blown detonation mode for much of the film, and his tirades have a shattering power. But through the slightest shifts in expression and tone, barely perceptible moments of softening and relaxation, she shows us the frayed humanity behind Pansy's antagonism: the fragility, the fear, and the festering disappointment. Although Happy and carefreeWhile Poppy is naturally exuberant, she also practices happiness as a way of life, an act of joyful rebellion against a harsh world; Pansy, for reasons both explicit and implicit, does not (and never has) had this privilege.

Pansy and Chantal are so clearly where Leigh’s interest lies that the film’s supporting characters can’t help but feel thin by comparison. Curtley, in particular, isn’t convincingly drawn: he’s a victim of Pansy’s wrath, but also a cause, and this duality feels less complex than unclear. Meanwhile, glimpses into Aleisha and Kayla’s professional lives (each has an obligatory workplace scene) are perfunctory at best. Hard truths At times it seems uncertain whether this is a narrowly focused character study or a broader interweaving of lives.

Such shortcomings are hardly a deciding factor in a film that otherwise fits like a small but crucial piece in the larger puzzle of its creator’s career. That sense of belonging is bolstered by fine contributions from Leigh’s regular collaborators, including DP Dick Pope’s piercing close-ups and Gary Yershon’s orchestral score, which oscillates between mournful strings and bittersweet notes of optimism.

If the question is why Pansy's family puts up with her persecution Hard truths Like an unsolved mystery, Leigh lets glimmers of an answer emerge as the film draws to a close: Pansy may be a nightmare, but in her howling, forlorn way she is also a life force. And in Jean-Baptiste’s brilliant performance, one senses the possibility—remote, but distinct—that beneath all this woman’s ferocity and fury lies a kind of fierce, furious love.