Marianne Jean-Baptiste received universal acclaim and an Oscar nomination for one of her first film roles, that of Hortense Cumberbatch, the illegitimate daughter of Cynthia Rose Purley (Brenda Blethyn) in Mike Leigh’s award-winning drama Secrets & Lies.
Since then, she’s appeared onstage, in many TV shows including Without a Trace, as well as in numerous films like Noah Baumbach’s Mr. Jealousy, Nancy Savoca’s The 24-Hour Woman, Tony Scott’s Spy Game, Doug Liman’s Edge of Tomorrow, and Peter Strickland’s In Fabric, mostly in supporting roles.
Hard Truths reunites Jean-Baptiste with Leigh and together they’ve developed a lead performance of such nuance and depth that the perpetually-vexed character feels incredibly authentic. She’s so real you can’t help feel for her, even when she’s hard to take.
Pansy (Marianne Jean-Baptiste) is an angry, anxiety-ridden woman, constantly cleaning her suburban home and ceaselessly ranting at her unmotivated 22-year-old son Moses (Tuwaine Barrett) and her clueless husband Curtley (David Webber). She also rages at her doctor, dentist, and various salespeople, turning her fears outward and using her bitterness as a shield against more life-disappointments and devastations.
We are given small clues as to why Pansy is the way she is thanks to the layered, towing performance by Jean-Baptiste. In the emotionally searing final reel, we discover even more about her and why she’s so miserable and furious at the world.
This is Jean-Baptiste’s finest work to date onscreen and, even in this year’s unparalleled number of outstanding lead female acting performances, she deserves to be in Oscar’s final five. She won the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress as well as prizes from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association and National Society of Film Critics. And her performance just made the BAFTA long-list.
The Contending had the privilege of a zoom-chat with the stage, screen, and TV thesp.
