Very rarely does the world allow angry Black women to exist peacefully.
To be angry and Black is to confirm everything that makes us a threat in the white imagination. Even those of us who are not aggressive or in mourning are accused of being intimidating and unapproachable.
It is, then, almost therapeutic to watch Marianne Jean-Baptiste’s ‘Pansy’ refuse to be anything but unreasonable for the entirety of Mike Leigh’s latest film Hard Truths.
Pansy is a woman consumed by rage; she wakes up every morning with a violent scream and seems compelled to take that violence with her wherever she goes. Nobody is safe; not her introverted son Moses (played by Tuwaine Barrett), her husband Curtley (David Webber) or her charming hairdresser sister Chantelle (Michele Austin). Even random toddlers are victimised by her hostility. And it is a privilege to watch.