Mike Leigh's Hard Truths is a hard watch

For all the huge respect English director Mike Leigh has gathered over the years, he also divides audiences sharply. He’s been nominated many times for an Oscar – films like Vera Drake, Topsy Turvey, Happy Go Lucky and his most popular film, Secrets and Lies.

But his latest, Hard Truths, was snubbed by the Academy this year, even though it was showered with accolades elsewhere, particularly for its lead performance by Marianne Jean-Baptiste, who made her name in Secrets and Lies, as it happens.

In Hard Truths she plays Pansy, who can be summed up in one word. She’s angry. Angry all the time.

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Pansy wakes up each morning with a panicky yell and then carries on like that for the rest of the day. She terrorises both her husband Curtley and their son Moses into silence whenever they’re together.

Moses spends his time in his room with his computer, apart from going for a walk every day. Meanwhile Curtley is a plumber who’s out of the house most of the time. Just as well, you might say.

There’s not a lot of what you call conversation going on at home, if by “conversation” you mean more than one person talking.

By contrast with Pansy’s endless hostility there’s her upbeat sister Chantelle. She's a hairdresser and can also be summed up in one word. She’s cheerful. She’s very cheerful. She chats cheerfully with her clients. She’s got two cheerful daughters. She even tries to be cheerful with her sister.

Now here’s my question. Because Pansy is so unrelentingly furious with everyone, you might be forgiven for thinking we’re going somewhere with this.

There are clearly problems in her past – hers and Chantelle’s – that led to her locking herself away, while her sister happily went out in the world.

But that’s not how Mike Leigh works. “No easy answers,” it says on his calling card. There may be mental health issues here, but we don’t know because Leigh’s characters don’t know how to ask.

How can Pansy fight her way out of her hostility and depression? Once again, that’s not whereHard Truths is going.

There may not be easy answers, but it can’t be denied there are some pretty easy questions.

When Leigh and his actors – notably the brilliant Marianne Jean-Baptiste as Pansy – first devised the character, they seemed to have stopped at “she could start a fight in an empty room”. Is this enough? Not for me.

I had a similar feeling about another award-winning Mike Leigh movie, Happy Go Lucky, despite a terrific starring performance by Sally Hawkins.

She did her best, but her character still boiled down to “happy all the time”. That was it. Well, here’s the companion piece.

Pansy is unhappy all the time. It’s fascinating watching audiences’ reactions to the character. Some find her hilarious, as she fires broadsides in all directions, like a particularly aggressive, standup comedian.

But others just see the despair of her near and dear as they try and get to the bottom of what’s bothering her. There’s clearly something.

And without getting to the bottom of it, what’s the point? I found myself increasingly at odds with Hard Truths, despite the rave reviews and copious award nominations.

What does Pansy want? Does she want anything? Is there any hope for poor Curtley, under the barrage of incoherent abuse from his wife? Do you believe the slightly arbitrary possibility of a happy ending for one of the characters at the end? I certainly didn’t.

I like Marianne Jean-Baptiste. I admire the fact she refused to soften the character of Pansy, and took her to end of the line.

But every time sister Chantelle – a great performance by the lovely Michele Austin – appeared, then left the scene, I just wanted to go with her. At least her truths weren’t as hard as everyone else’s.