Mike Leigh typically keeps plot details of his films under wraps until their premiere, and with Hard Truths, all he provided was a vague synopsis about exploring family dynamics in a “post-COVID world.” Throughout the English filmmaker’s first movie in six years, and his first since 2010’s Another Year to be set in the present day, I kept thinking back to the significance of that throwaway description. Lockdowns are only referenced a couple of times within Hard Truths, but this is a drama where the central character study is irreparably shaped by them, even if those dots are never directly connected. Pansy (Marianne Jean-Baptiste) was never happy, but in the years following her mother’s death, the world locked itself indoors, and she’s re-emerged with an inability to contain the rage she had to shut away for so long.

It’s no surprise that Leigh has once again managed to make a funny, empathetic examination of a character one might cross the street to avoid, but Pansy feels emblematic of the societal mood at large, more so than any of the director’s previous troubled protagonists. Her outspoken anger within Hard Truths could be easily attributed to bottled up emotions following the death of her mother a few years prior (the plot, as much as this film has one, spends a few days in the life of Pansy and her long-suffering family in the week leading up to Mother’s Day), and this is undeniably critical to the audience’s understanding of her, especially when contrasted with younger sister Chantelle (Michele Austin, another Leigh veteran), who is open about her battles with grief and depression in the intervening years but has maintained a warm relationship with her family despite it. She’s a hairdresser, one who banters with customers during her first two scenes before going home to joke around with her daughters. This is ordinary life for Chantelle (and hardly romanticized), but when placed next to her sister — whose own husband and son have long been rendered antisocial, no longer attempting to get a word in edgeways — her life looks like it’s straight out of a greetings card.

Hard Truths Review: Related — Know the Cast: ‘The Lost Daughter’

It would be tempting to call Hard Truths Leigh’s attempt to get under the skin of what we now know as a “Karen.” Yes, his films have featured unhappy women of a certain age before, but this archetype is far more contemporary, a person who has grown more self-centered throughout the social media age, becoming self-entitled beyond a breaking point when life hasn’t gone their way. In popular culture, a Karen is typically depicted more simplistically as a middle-aged white woman who complains to a store manager at the slightest inconvenience — and yes, there is a scene in Hard Truths where Pansy does just that, which builds to the funniest moment in the film. I suspect this archetype wasn’t on Leigh’s mind when working with his actors to create the story, but it will be hard to overlook for many viewers, and could lead to the criticism that — due to the typical specificity of this as a white stereotype — the director struggled to make his first film with an almost-entirely Black cast feel as authentic as many of its predecessors. This is why I refuse to label Hard Truths as part of an unofficial Karen Canon, as while Pansy’s behaviors may be similar, her unhappiness is rooted in a different cause altogether.

Hard Truths Review: Related — Soundtracks of Cinema: ‘The Bikeriders’

Jean-Baptiste has already spoken about how it was difficult to emerge from Pansy’s volatile headspace; when you play someone always looking for reasons to complain, or to bring down those around you, it takes a mental toll no matter how much levity complements the material. For my money, Jean-Baptiste gives one of the strongest performances in Leigh’s oeuvre, afforded the space to go “big” in Hard Truths without ever feeling like she’s commanding a self-aggrandizing actor’s showcase. This is partly thanks to the way the lead actress collaborates with the ensemble, who all try to offer Pansy humanity as she attempts to suck all the oxygen out of the room and make them all as miserable as her. Through the ensemble, it’s clear that the endless angst is all bravado, and that each rant is more powerful for what Pansy isn’t saying. Yes, her delivery of playground insults to everybody around her offers a steady stream of laughs, but Jean-Baptiste makes clear through expressions and gestures with each line that there’s a greater anguish bubbling up to the surface which she refuses to verbalize. It’s a devastating portrayal of a broken woman, effortlessly empathetic even as Pansy makes herself hard to like.

Hard Truths Review: Related — Know the Cast: ‘Hold Your Breath’

In the years since the COVID-19 lockdown ended, we’ve been inundated with social media testimonies from disgruntled people, angry that those around them have forgotten how to act with grace and decorum in public. Many of us are far closer to Pansy’s headspace than we may be comfortable admitting, and it’s only being able to articulate emotions other than anger that’s stopping us from regressing to that mental state. This is how Hard Truths manages to extend empathy towards someone so needlessly abrasive. In the post-COVID world, there are more Pansys than ever all around us — it’s not easy to spend time with them, but it is vital.

Alistair Ryder (@YesitsAlistair) is a film and TV critic based in Manchester, England. By day, he interviews the great and the good of the film world for Zavvi, and by night, he criticizes their work as a regular reviewer at outlets including The Film Stage and Looper.

Hard Truths Review: Related — Soundtracks of Cinema: ‘Stuck Together’