ALLIANCE OF WOMEN FILM JOURNALISTS

Female Film Critics 24/375

mike leigh

Interviews 

Marianne Jean-Baptiste talks HARD TRUTHS, Angry Pansy and Mike Leigh – Pam Grady interviews

Pam Grady , , ,

In 1996, Marianne Jean-Baptiste broke through in a big way in Mike Leigh’s Secrets & Lies. She received a Best Supporting Actress nomination for her role as Hortense, a London optometrist and adoptee, who finds her birth mother, a working-class factory worker played by Brenda Blethyn. The actor soon embarked on a busy career in television with roles in such shows as Without a Trace, Broadchurch, Blindspot, and Training Day. But now she’s reunited with Leigh for Hard Truths, playing Pansy, a chaotic woman who expresses her fears and frustrations in the anger that she unleashes on family and strangers alike. To date, she has garnered a slew of nominations and awards, including winning the Best Lead Performance British Independent Film Award. A second Oscar nomination appears to be in her future as lightning strikes twice in her alliance with Leigh, the master of improvisational cinema.

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Reviews 

HARD TRUTHS – Review by Diane Carson

Diane Carson , , ,

Hard Truths dramatizes a brittle, angry British woman, Most people most of the time suppress the urge to verbally assault others, however tempting the impulse. Polite exchange usually wins out. Well, meet Pansy Deacon whose social graces appear nonexistent in writer/director Mike Leigh’s Hard Truths. In a magnificent, courageous performance, Marianne Jean-Baptiste manages to reveal Pansy’s pain amidst her outbursts.

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Festivals Reviews 

HARD TRUTHS (TIFF 2024) – Review by Liz Braun

Liz Braun , , , , , ,

Who gets to be happy? Why is joy so natural to some and misery to others? Filmmaker Mike Leigh has investigated this territory before, and in the character of the furious Pansy (Marianne Jean-Baptiste), center of his new movie, Hard Truths, he has created a fountain of grief, anger and disappointment in life. Hard Truths is more difficult than most Mike Leigh movies, and yet it’s a film you just can’t stop thinking about. The director’s work so often shows us what sort of shape we’re all in at the moment; Marianne Jean-Baptiste’s extraordinary performance makes it clear that things are not so great in this world of ours.

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Reviews 

SWEET SUE – Review by Nadine Whitney

Nadine Whitney , , , ,

Leo Leigh’s feature debut, Sweet Sue, has a scrappy not quite formed quality. The British comedy/drama seems to be made up of vignettes for the audience to piece together. The Sue (Maggie O’Neill) of the title is a fifty-something East London woman who has found herself back on the dating scene. After being stood up in a restaurant she gets progressively more drunk. We have the feeling that Sue more often than not has a drink in her hand. We also learn that she’s tired of the run-around. She’s been around the block more than once, and if the way her family seem to treat her, the journey has been bumpy.

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Interviews 

Casting Director Nina Gold on Intuition and Happy Accidents – Emma Badame interviews

Emma Badame , , , , , , , , , ,

British Casting Director Nina Gold, a veteran of more than three decades in the industry, began her impressive career casting extras in rock music videos and before long found herself working alongside her countryman, auteur Mike Leigh. From there she’s gone on to collaborate with award-winning filmmakers like Jane Campion (Bright Star and The Power of the Dog), Steven Spielberg (The BFG), and Sam Mendes (1917 and Empire of Light). Her full filmography reads like a “best of”, with the casts of audience and critical favourites like Bad Sisters, Game of Thrones and Chernobyl down to her. Her most recent project, Firebrand, just premiered in competition at Cannes 2023.

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