Leigh never lets his audience escape the underlying humiliation and helplessness Pansy feels, and Pansy never allows herself that grace either. In that respect, calling the film “Hard Truths” almost implies a well-earned victory lap for a filmmaker who has dedicated his work to elucidating the complexities of the human condition,

The co-stars, who first played sisters in a 1993 Mike Leigh play, explain the iconoclastic director's unique method and how 'Hard Truths' took shape.

Jean-Baptiste has worked with Leigh off and on since the ‘90s. She wrote parts of the score to one of his earliest films, another exploration of prickly women and relationships, 1997’s Career Girls. “ (Leigh) trusts that when I'm going to go into a project,

Pansy (Marianne Jean-Baptiste), protagonist of Mike Leigh’s “Hard Truths,” opening Friday in Houston, is not the first postmenopausal cinematic antiheroine to ask to speak to a manager. But she is — apologies to Frances McDormand’s career — the most fascinating.

Marianne Jean-Baptiste could earn her second Oscar nomination for Mike Leigh's "Hard Truths." It's a long time coming for the veteran actress.