Toronto Fest Embraces Mike Leigh’s ‘Hard Truths’

It’s no secret that Toronto loves Mike Leigh and it would be a lie to say Hard Truths, the latest from the legendary British director, didn’t get a warm welcome at its world premiere at the Toronto Film Festival Friday night.

Hard Truths bowed at TIFF‘s Royal Alexandra Theatre with Leigh and star Marianne Jean-Baptiste in attendance. The last time the actress and director worked together was on Secrets & Lies, which premiered at Cannes in 1996, won the Palme d’Or, and launched Jean-Baptiste’s international career.

In the new feature, Jean-Baptiste plays Pansy, a woman full of fury at fate and the world who lashes out, bitterly, brutally and often hilariously, at her family and anyone unlucky enough to cross her path. It is a riveting performance from the British actress, who has been a more frequent fixture on the small screen, having spent seven seasons on CBS procedural Without a Trace and appearing on the network’s short-lived Training Day and on Homecoming on Amazon Prime.

The Toronto crowd welcomed her back, leaping to their feet in a thunderous standing ovation when Jean-Baptiste took the stage after the final credits rolled. She joined director Leigh, Hard Truths producer Georgina Lowe and co-stars Michele Austin, who plays Pansy’s sister Chantelle, and David Webber as Curtley, Pansy’s husband.

Jean-Baptiste said while working on the role she often took Pansy with her back home and started to “observe the world as Pansy would” but was able to maintain a distance between herself and the character’s seething anger. “I have a sense of humor but Pansy doesn’t, so the stuff coming from her was said completely seriously. But I could tell that it was extremely funny.”

Leigh said in creating “fully real, 3-dimensional” characters, he was striving “to make a film that resisted the stereotypical tropes that many films use, particularly when looking at Black people.”

Bleecker Street pre-bought Hard Truths and will release the film theatrically in the U.S. later this year. Studiocanal is releasing the movie in the U.K., while Cornerstone Films is handling international sales.

You can check out the film’s trailer below.