Puzzlingly, before receiving is world premiere in Toronto last month, Leigh confirmed the film was rejected by three major film festivals, external – Venice, Cannes and Telluride.
“It’s hard to know what to feel about Cannes,” Leigh told the Associated Press of the French festival where he had previously won the top prize. “If you look at the line-up, you think, maybe you can see that they wanted glitz and glamour.
“You think, whatever. I mean, if nobody wanted it at all… then I’d start to twitch.”
Reviews from the festivals where the film has played have been hugely positive, with Vanity Fair’s Richard Lawson saying, external it’s “a pleasure seeing the pair reunited for another piercing character study” in a “dazzlingly complex, bracing work”.
“Leigh’s films can feel shaggy and unstructured on first viewing,” added Variety’s Peter Debruge., external “Hard Truths is no different, but there’s profound poetry in every scene.”
Screen Rant’s Patrice Witherspoon noted:, external “Inherently, witnessing a woman propel insults at people is humorous, but sadness layers the script, making it deeply moving.”
While the film isn’t an easy watch, she added, “thanks to a stunning lead performance from Jean-Baptiste and an ending that doesn’t take the easy way out, it is a must-watch”.
“The beauty of Hard Truths,” reflected Next Best Picture’s Nadia Dalimonte,, external “is its incredible embrace of Pansy in all her complexities”.
