Pansy is just like my mom for half the movie. Minus the wealthy house, the OCD and the crippling fear of anything nature, plus she only abuses immediate family, but is always super friendly outside the house. She toned it down in later years, but yeah, always unhappy with you, always criticizing and insulting you. Never a good word. Irritable at the drop of a hat. So this felt kind of familiar, but also very uncomfortable. Of course this woman's behaviour is extreme, and I don't blame anybody around her for "hating" her. I kept waiting for some big revelation, some deep-seated trauma, some tragic event in her past, severe abuse, something like that. She had a tough childhood, but nothing that would explain this. She might have some form of depression, but I haven't heard of this type of manifestation. Depression doesn't make you this mean, does it?
Mike Leigh's movies end in some sort of revelation about the main character or we just naturally empathize with them, despite their flaws. This wasn't the case here at all, and I kept waiting for it. Nothing excuses Pansy's attitude in the end, and I could see parts of myself in Moses and Curtley. A person like this makes you act like that.
Marianne Jean-Baptiste is undoubtably an immensely talented actress. But I do not get the point of this movie, unless it's meant to be a character study of a deeply unpleasant person and the hurt she causes everyone around her, in which case well done. The positives here are her sister Chantelle, an absolutely lovely woman and her two daughters. I wish the movie was about them really, but unfortunately it's not.
