Dir: Mike Leigh. With Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Michele Austin, David Webber. UK-Spain 2024. 96 mins.
After his large-scale historical dramas (Mr Turner, Peterloo), Mike Leigh has returned to chronicling the lives of ordinary people in contemporary Britain in this collaboration with Marianne Jean-Baptiste (Secrets & Lies). She is Pansy, a classic Leigh character: acerbic, misunderstood, fed up with life. Physical illness and emotional difficulties have caused her to lash out at the world. These moods mean that her husband and sons need to tread cautiously around her, while her sister Chantal (Michele Austin) is the only one who can truly get through to her. Everything comes to a climax over the course of a fraught Mother’s Day weekend, observed with unwavering realism by the master of contemporary domestic drama. A masterful return to form for Leigh, with another superb performance from Jean-Baptiste.
As resonant and as satisfying as anything in the Leigh canon - Screen International
