There is no filmmaker alive who understands the mundanity and quiet grace of the human experience quite like Mike Leigh. Over a decades-spanning career he’s found poetry and pathos in the everyday business of being alive. From David Thewlis’ nihilistic Johnny in Naked to Sally Hawkins’ irrepressibly effervescent Poppy in Happy-Go-Lucky, his characters feel intensely real while also reflecting a subdued desperation at the heart of British society.

After taking on a larger canvas with Peterloo, Leigh makes a welcome return to intimate character studies with Hard Truths, shooting in a stripped-down style that echoes the television films that made his name. He reunites with Marianne Jean-Baptiste, who he directed in the Palme d’Or-winning Secrets & Lies, and who here gives a truly astonishing performance as a woman who cannot articulate her abject misery.

An affecting portrait of a woman in crisis

Pansy (Jean-Baptiste) constantly lashes out at everyone around her,...