A woman of boundless scorn

   Marianne Jean-Baptiste delivers a major performance in director Mike Leigh's Hard Truths, a piercing drama set in a British working-class milieu as seen through the lens of a Black family with Jamaican roots. Jean-Baptiste, who appeared in Leigh's Secrets & Lies (1999), provides the bitter glue that keeps Hard Truths on track.

  It's a bumpy ride, distinguished by Baptiste Pansy's biting resentment, which turns mean when directed outward. Pansy doesn't conceal her contempt for strangers, supermarket cashiers, salespeople, and, most of all, her husband (David Webber), a hard-working plumber who takes enough abuse from his wife to qualify him for sainthood. 

  Pansy's son (Tuwaine Barrett) fares no better. Addicted to video games, he's unable to kickstart a productive life. Small wonder he's stuck: Mom prefers hectoring to encouragement. 

   Fortunately, Leigh includes a counterbalance to Pansy's intractable sourness. Michele Austin plays Pansy's younger sister Chantelle, a cheerful hairdresser liked by everyone she encounters. Chantelle's two adult daughters (Ani Nelson and Sophia Brown) are equally engaging. They represent the branch of the family tree that still knows how to blossom.

   Despite her bitterness, which Leigh never fully explains, Pansy's family tries to stay even-keeled around her. They've had plenty of practice, and we feel their pain, the weight of their abidance.

   Leigh employs his usual method of story development. He invites his actors to invent characters and refines them throughout a lengthy process that results in a shooting script. The style leans heavily on character and emotional truth, overshadowing the importance of plot.

   At one point, Chantelle asks her sister to join her on Mother's Day for a visit to the cemetery where their mother is buried. The trip provides one more occasion for Pansy to rail about how life has short-changed her. 

     It's difficult to play a truly annoying character without alienating an audience. But before the movie ends, Jean-Baptiste has made it clear that Pansy's bitterness consumes her as much as it torments others.

   Like many embittered people, Pansy is driven by pain and fear, and Jean-Baptiste reveals the full measure of both. Pansy's anger is so deeply embedded, she may fear she'd vanish without it. 

    A memorable character, Pansy may remind you of someone in your family, albeit in an intensely magnified way. At least, I hope she's a heightened version of someone you might know.

   If not, you have my sympathy, as well as my respect for your ability to endure.

   

Bob's Cinema Diary: 4/24/19 -- Wild Nights with Emily, Peterloo and Sunset

Some weeks, the number of movies challenges even those of us who tend to review as much as possible. This is one of those weeks. As a result, I'm trying something a bit different; i.e., I'm going to write about as much as possible in the most efficient way. If it works, you may see this approach again. I'm calling it a "diary" even though it reflects nothing about my life -- other than the fact that much of it has been measured in movies. Make what you will of that.

Wild Nigh Nights with Emily

The movie, A Quiet Passion (2017), took us inside the isolated life of poet Emily Dickinson. Cynthia Nixon led director Terrence Davies' somber look at a poet who could be preoccupied with mortality. It's not easy, after all, to be upbeat about a poet who wrote this line: "I felt a Funeral, in my Brain." Those familiar with Dickinson's work may be a bit shocked to find that Wild Nights with Emily, which casts Molly Shannon as the poet, sheds the shroud of gloom that usually accompanies talk of Dickinson. Shannon portrays a poet who carried on an enduring lesbian relationship with her sister-in-law Susan (Susan Ziegler). Don't fret about Dickinson's brother Austin (Kevin Seal); he busies himself with an affair with Mabel Loomis Todd (Amy Seimetz), the woman whose lecture about Dickinson's life and poetry frames the story. The movie traces the relationship between Amy and Susan back through their teen years, and director Madeleine Olnek often takes a frolicking approach without dismissing the seriousness of Dickinson's work. The movie doesn't short change the difficulties Dickinson had finding acceptance as a woman poet in the 19th century but approaches much of the story with a sly understanding of the absurd propriety that keeps everyone from acknowledging the obvious. Shannon and Ziegler make what initially seems an unlikely approach (fiction based on reasonable speculation) into something that challenges Dickinson's image, cracking the ice of literary reverence to find a real person. At one point, Dickinson writes a poem on the back of a sheet of paper containing one of her recipes. She supplies some of the local Amherst kids with gingerbread that she lowers in a basket from her bedroom window and, thanks to Shannon, has an expression that punctures pretension. I have no idea how Dickinson purists will react to the movie, but it made me feel better about a poet who seemed to live with an eye on the grave. If it's wishful thinking, then consider it a good example of such license: In Wild Nights with Emily, we meet a Dickinson who seems to defy convention without guilt, particularly when it comes to tasting the pleasures of love, sex, and emotional intimacy.

PETERLOO

A bit of background for those of us who aren't particularly well-versed in English history. In 1819, the British cavalry spent three hours stomping through a crowd of as many as 80,000 protesters in St Peter's Field, Manchester. The protesters were demanding that parliamentary representation that reflected a one-man-one-vote approach. (It would be nearly a century before women in Britain won the right to vote.) It pains me to say that director Mike Leigh, whose work I take seriously, has turned a potentially volatile story into a series of illustrated position papers that expose all sides of the disputes leading up what became known as the Peterloo Massacre. Heavy on mise-en-scene, Peterloo devolves into a series of meetings that make it seem as if the movie's real subject is oratory. Suffice to say that none of the movie's various politicians could survive the age of Twitter. The movie clearly expresses its main conflict: The elite want to keep the discontented masses at bay, and those same masses want to be heard. The oppressed consist of those who work the mills of Manchester, eking out a living and trying to cling to their dignity. Leigh's approach requires him to introduce a large number of characters, many defined almost entirely by their political stances and by whatever flavor the actors are able to bring to the enterprise. Leigh clearly sides with the downtrodden, beginning his movie by following a young bugler (David Moorst) who returns to Manchester in a near daze after the Battle of Waterloo. The movie builds toward the fated demonstration at which the great orator Henry Hunt (Rory Kinnear) has been scheduled to address the crowd. At times, Leigh creates the illusion that events almost are unfolding in real time. But there's hardly a shot or scene that doesn't overstay its welcome, and Leigh winds up with a movie in which honorable intentions aren't quite enough to stave off the feeling that we're undergoing a bit of an endurance test.

SUNSET

I was not among those who found Hungarian director Laszlo Nemes' Holocaust drama Son of Saul (2015) as stunning as many other critics. That film, Laszlo's first, won an Oscar for best foreign-language film. I suppose, then, that I shouldn't have been surprised that Laszlo's second outing -- Sunset -- proves even less successful. Over-using his signature camera move -- he follows characters into scenes in a way that disorients the viewer -- Nemes takes us to Budapest on the eve of World War I. The movie focuses on Irisz Leiter (Juli Jakab), a young woman who arrives in Budapest from Trieste. She hopes to find employment at a renowned millinery shop. It doesn't take long to learn that Irisz is the daughter of the shop's former owners, a couple who were killed in a fire that ravaged the store. The meticulous Oszkar Brill (Vlad Ivanov) has rebuilt the business. He has no wish to hire anyone from the family of its previous owners. Irisz, who was sent to an orphanage at the age of two, also learns that she had an apparently wayward brother who murdered the husband of a countess (Julia Jakubowska). A variety of characters keep warning Iresz to leave town; she keeps ignoring their advice. Pressing on as she tries to locate her brother, Irisz begins to learn dreadful secrets about the hidden agenda behind the hat business. Confusing and ultimately unsatisfying, Sunset adheres to the rules of slow disclosure as if they were holy writ; but, in this case, the gradual revelation of information not only keeps the audience from getting ahead of the story but creates considerable frustration. In Sunset, slow disclosure comes perilously close to no disclosure at all. Sunset constantly flirts with larger meanings, but no deluge of insight arrives to quench the thirst for a comprehensible resolution.

Portrait of the artist as a troll

Mike Leigh's Mr Turner introduces us to a character without a single patrician impulse.

When the painter J.M.W. Turner dies at the end of director Mike Leigh's Mr. Turner, we feel a sense of vacancy, an acute absence that's not to be confused with sadness.

The reason for this lack of familiar emotion may be twofold: To begin with, Leigh has no taste for melodrama. Just as important, Timothy Spall's performance as Turner has been so full of grunts, muttered-asides and vivid physicality that it dominates nearly every scene, even when Turner's listening to someone else talk.

Spall creates a Turner who's part troll, part genius, and part emotionally crippled creature who was capable of incredible callousness. In short, Spall so fills the screen with his portrayal of Turner that when the great painter breathes his last breath, we almost feel the air escaping from the screen.

The director of movies such as Another Year, Vera Drake, Topsy-Turvy and Secrets and Lies can be spot-on or off-putting. In Mr. Turner, he's both.

Masterfully acted, Mr. Turner is no cinematic museum piece: It's an interpretive portrait of a man who lived in harsh times -- and seemed entirely up to the task.

Falling into provocative mode, Leigh shows us that great art (of which we see too little in the film) can spring from a harsh, even boorish source. Art and exemplary character do not necessarily go hand-in-hand, Mr. Turner leads us to believe. An artist can commit many sins, so long as delusion about his efforts is not one of them.

When we meet Turner, he's already a well-regarded artist. Upon returning from a trip to the Netherlands, Turner sets to work, and his household begins adjusting to his presence.

Turner's jovial father (Paul Jesson) has retired from his business as a barber so that he can fetch paints for his son and provide a hardy form of love and companionship.

Turner's even more devoted servant (Dorothy Atkinson) waits on him tirelessly, hoping that the great man might one day leave a few crumbs of affection on her meager plate. Occasionally, she serves as the target of Turner's sexual aggressions.

Turner also has an embittered former wife (Ruth Sheen) who cannot persuade him to acknowledge the two children he's had with her.

Turner's most normal relationship arrives when he travels to the seaside town of Margate. There, he strikes up a convivial affair with his landlady (Marion Bailey). He's actually kind to her. In return, she cares for him when they're together and at the end of his life. Think of it as a twilight alliance.

Bailey's Mrs. Booth doesn't seem to understand Turner's art, but she displays a natural acceptance of the man, no small feat. Turner died at the age of 76.

The movie doesn't so much advance a plot as it gathers scenes. At one point, Turner is visited by Mary Somerville (Lesley Manville), a woman whose scientific inclinations and observations about color fascinate him.

He sometimes visits the Royal Academy of Art, where he seems on amiable -- if gruff -- terms with his fellow artists, aside from John Constable (James Fleet). In on of the movie's best moments, Turner one-ups Constable in a major way.

Turner's also pestered from time to time by a financially challenged artist Benjamin Haydon (Martin Savage), a painter of lesser talent. Haydon rages against his misfortunes by condemning those who refuse to exalt his work.

Although the movie covers about 20 years, Leigh does little to mark the passage of time. He simply moves from one scene to the next. It's Spall -- with his harsh and grunting ways -- who gives the movie a center.

Everyone else becomes a kind of bit player, small planets revolving around Turner's glaring sun. John Ruskin (Joshua McGuire) championed Turner's work, but comes off as an effete snob who has taken cultural superiority to appalling extremes.

Relying on the exceptional cinematography of Dick Pope and the careful production design of Suzie Davies, Leigh creates a period piece that takes us from the high point of Turner's success to a time when his work -- which began breaking the ground for Impression -- was derided by the public, his colleagues and even Queen Victoria.

True to his contradictory nature, a sales-conscious Turner bequeathed many of his paintings to the British public, turning down a major sum of money for them.

Pope's images of seascapes and landscapes suggest Turner paintings, and the movie makes it clear that Turner was a great student of light -- although it doesn't necessarily do justice to the remarkable sense of drama Turner brought to what were called his "marine" paintings.

I wish Leigh had spent more time showing us how Turner's artistic vision developed, but he seems to want to meet Turner on his own ground and without explanation. He compels us to spend time with an often disagreeable fellow.

I suppose that makes Mr. Turner a movie with a pugnacious attitude: It juts out its jaw, as if loudly to grunt, "Here he is. Make what you will of him."

Mike Leigh on the curse of loneliness

Brilliantly acted and unafraid of pain, Mike Leigh's Another Year takes us to uncomfortable places.

Tom and Gerri are two halves of a London couple ensconced in an idyllic marriage. They seem to enjoy each other's company. They both work at productive jobs. He's a geological engineer. She's a psychological counselor. Their home exudes lived-in comfort, and, in their spare time, Tom and Gerri toddle off to their garden plot to grow vegetables. Did I mention, he cooks, and they never seem at a loss for a decent bottle of wine to enhance even the most rudimentary of meals?

Tom and Gerri occupy the center of Mike Leigh's quietly moving Another Year, a movie that takes us through four seasons in the lives of Tom, Gerri and the people who assemble around them. For all their contentment, Tom and Gerri are like a ship gathering barnacles of despair -- in the form of friends and relatives.

I've observed this phenomenon at close hand: One couple becomes a centerpiece in the lives of a variety of people. Many of these "satellite" folks measure their lives against the happy couple's apparent successes. Unlike recent American movies about couples -- Rabbit Hole and Blue Valentine, for example -- Another Year doesn't deal with crisis situations. The despair in Another Year is life-sized and cumulative, and seems to have grown in the well-watered soil of loneliness and desperation.

Jim Broadbent and Ruth Sheen play Tom and Gerri, two well-adjusted adults who treat their friends with acceptance, as well as with a bit of condescension. Their door seems always to be open, but Tom and Gerri also understand the inadequacies of some of their friends, showing slight traces of the superiority the self-possessed sometimes feel toward the maladjusted.

Early on, Leigh makes it clear that he's intent on assaying a particular kind of despair, the kind that closes in when people reach the brink of what has become known as "young" old age, the late 50s, say. To make the point, Leigh begins the movie with one of Gerri's co-workers talking to a woman (Imelda Staunton) who's suffering from terrible insomnia.

Staunton's Janet is advised to seek counseling, but you can tell from Staunton's grim expression that this woman doesn't want to talk and probe; she wants the blessed relief of unconsciousness. Staunton's character vanishes after that first scene, but she sets a powerful tone for what follows.

I don't mean to make Another Year sound like an ordeal; it isn't. A splendid ensemble cast creates characters that are recognizable and real. We could know these people. Maybe, in some way, we do. There's real pleasure in that.

Two of Tom and Gerri's friends stand apart from the rest.

First, Mary (Lesley Manville), a secretary who works at the same facility as Gerri. An annoyingly giddy manner masks Mary's depression. She's one of those women who never had much going for her, but was reasonably attractive. Now that her looks are beginning to fade, Mary faces the prospect of ... well ... no prospects. Mary doesn't talk; she prattles, and when she drinks too much wine -- which is whenever she drinks -- she inevitably embarrasses herself.

Stick with Manville. I believe that before the movie's done, she topples the walls of caricature and gets to something painfully real.

Then there's Tom's old buddy, Ken (Peter Wight). Ken shows up for a visit, looking like a walking prelude to a coronary. He smokes. He's almost always got a beer can in hand. Overweight and disheveled, he seems to be gasping for breath even when he's standing still. He's a wreck, and he makes an awkward play to connect with Mary, another wreck. She's too vain to admit that Ken might be the best that she can do.

Somehow, Mary has made Tom and Gerri's son Joe (Oliver Maltman) the target of a misguided flirtation. He's a lawyer, and he seems to have the same generally cheerful disposition with which his father and mother are blessed. He humors Mary. When Joe brings home a girlfriend (Karina Fernandez) to meet his parents, Mary's thrown into a tailspin. She's being ridiculous, of course, but for Mary, Joe probably represents a way into the happily-ever-after existence that Tom and Gerri seem to have found. When that door slams shut, she's sad and rueful.

As with all Leigh movies, plot seldom stands in the way of characterization and drama filters through the incessant drip of ordinary life, a backyard barbecue, an unannounced visit or an afternoon tea.

In the movie's final segment the tone shifts a bit: We meet Tom's brother Ronnie (David Bradley). Ronnie's wife has just passed away. His affliction is twofold: He's stricken with grief and unable to express it. It's difficult to believe that Tom and Ronnie derive from the same gene pool, but Leigh insists on bringing Ronnie -- a veritable mountain of gloom -- into the movie's home stretch.

Not everything in Another Year is fully realized. But the performances are outstanding, and Leigh dares to show us what happens to those unfortunate folks who realize that they've arrived at a moment in which life is as good as it's ever going to get -- and, sadly, it's not good enough.