Hard Truths - British & Irish FF

Those two stark monosyllables in the title are a callback to Leigh’s debut from 1971, Bleak Moments: they lay down an uncompromising and yet also enigmatic challenge. This movie isn’t going to be an easy ride; of course not. But if it promises to reveal hard truths in their simplest and most irreducible sense, then what are these hard truths exactly?
Perhaps the hardest and most obvious truth is that the lead character is suffering from clinical depression and urgently needs to see a professional about it. But no one actually puts that hard truth to her, or maybe they did, long ago, and had it angrily thrown back in their face. And so the second hard truth is that no one can help someone who doesn’t want to be helped.

Hard Truths is a deeply sober, sombre, compassionate drama about a black British family, with flashes of fun and happiness that are emollient if not exactly redemptive. After his two large-scale historical dramas in 2014 and 2018, Mr Turner and Peterloo, this is a return to Leigh’s classic style, inhabiting a contemporary world shot by cinematographer Dick Pope in cold, clear London daylight, with sad family scenes and vignettes of disillusionment and quiet day-to-day courage divided by dreamy, melancholy woodwind melodies composed by Leigh’s longtime musical collaborator Gary Yershon.... The Guardian