From ‘Abigail’s Party’ to ‘Hard Truths’: the impressive evolution of Mike Leigh’s career
What does it mean to evolve as a filmmaker? In the ever-changing landscape of cinema, many directors fail to adapt to new trends or allow their work to remain stuck in the past, their ambitious ideas no longer working. Look at Francis Ford Coppola, whose 2024 film Megalopolis became yet another stain on a career that was once deeply impressive. The auteur failed to evolve with the medium, resulting in a terrible mess of themes and techniques that, quite frankly, were rather embarrassing.
Then there are the filmmakers who have managed to evolve with the times incredibly well; take Agnès Varda, for example, whose career was near-flawless from the 1950s until the 2010s, with her acceptance of handheld digital cameras allowing her work to develop – her use of the technology presenting her with a new way to capture self-portraits and personal interviews with her subjects. Of course, a filmmaker doesn’t have to adapt to digital technology to evolve – after all, shooting on film usually looks considerably better – but this excitement to capture the world as it changes (and the skill required) becomes a hallmark of a truly great director.
Coppola might have had the ambition when making Megalopolis, but the skill was, evidently, not there. Mike Leigh, on the other hand, is a filmmaker whose directorial ability has carried him through decades of success, and with the release of his latest film, Hard Truths – made 53 years after his feature film debut – he has proven his talents as a director who can truly evolve his craft. Leigh might now be in his 80s, but his knack for social commentary and his ability to capture the experiences of multiple generations living in modern England is as astute as ever.
Leigh’s early beginnings as a theatre director and playwright shine through his work despite the fact that there is nothing particularly theatrical about most of his films, which predominantly sit within the gritty realm of social realism. His background in theatre has allowed him to hone a complex understanding of character, however, and how to work with an actor to build a studied portrait of the person they must portray. Thus, all of Leigh’s films are character-driven, often forsaking the plot in favour of letting us into someone’s inner world or the day-to-day rhythm of their family life.
After his tenure in the theatre, he made his first film, Bleak Moments, but he struggled to find the funding to continue making feature films, instead directing various television plays. He contributed a steady amount of titles to the BBC’s Play for Today, starting with 1973’s Hard Labour, set in Salford, where he grew up, before finding great success with other contributions, like Nuts in May and Abigail’s Party.
In 1983, his next film, Meantime, was released, properly kickstarting Leigh’s career as a filmmaker. It was a powerful look at working-class family life during the Thatcher era, with themes like unemployment, disillusionment, racism, and generational dynamics all mixing together to form a rather plotless tale of poverty that captured the boredom felt by many lower-income people at the time.
Leigh firmly established himself as a master of telling stories that reflected the state of the country – from his exploration of the ‘new middle-class’ in Abigail’s Party to his scathing depiction of Conservative Britain in Meantime. Leigh knew how to create timely pieces of work that resonated with many viewers or simply highlighted to more privileged audiences the reality many Britons were facing. However, the ‘90s gave us Leigh’s best run of films, with the filmmaker truly able to prove his ability to blend humour with hard-hitting issues, as well as presenting hard-to-like characters alongside those you’d want to befriend. He often presented a sense of warmth among tough themes, although he wasn’t afraid to dig into the cold and uncomfortable core of many of life’s most testing moments.
From the family-centric Life Is Sweet to the nihilistic Naked, the stunning Secrets and Lies, the poignant tale of friendship Career Girls, and his ambitious period musical Topsy-Turvy, the ‘90s saw Leigh establish himself as one of Britain’s all-time greats. During this decade, the filmmaker expanded his depictions of troubled—or troubling—people, as evidenced by his multidimensional explorations of race, motherhood, and female friendship, as well as his impressive character study of the unlikeable yet beguiling Johnny Fletcher.
The 2000s and the 2010s saw Leigh explore period dramas, having made the bold choice to step away from social realism with Topsy-Turvy. Following his natural impulse, Leigh used his expertise in depicting messy, complex lives and social issues to work with a different setting, allowing his art to evolve through different time periods and historical events. He explored illegal abortions in Vera Drake, the life of a troubled artist in Mr Turner, and the Battle of Peterloo in Peterloo, retaining his sense of justice for the marginalized and misunderstood from a new angle.
However, between these period dramas, Leigh continued to make films that tapped into the heart of issues affecting England at the time. All Or Nothing takes us to early 2000s London, while Another Year transports us to 2010 and now, with Hard Truths, we’re given a post-pandemic world where grief and paranoia are the main flavours of protagonist Pansy’s life.
Hard Truths isn’t a film about the effects of the pandemic. Rather, it captures the state of modern Britain simply as it is, with Pansy struggling to communicate her fear of the outside world – and all of the hate and pain it seemingly dishes out – with anything but anger. We’re taken to post-work drinks with the younger characters, sofa shops and dentist offices with Pansy, and a local hairdresser’s where customers casually chat about their lives. An accurate picture of modern England forms throughout these interactions between characters, ranging from the lighthearted and hilarious to the depressingly bleak.
It’s easily one of Leigh’s most soul-crushingly miserable films, but it’s a vital tale of family, grief, and mental health issues, demonstrating the filmmaker’s genius in allowing character study to triumph over plot. For the first time, Leigh directs an almost all-Black cast, but this isn’t simply a white man’s assumptions of the Black experience. Talking to The Times, the director explained, “David Thewlis was brilliant at improvising Johnny, but I’m brilliant at working with that kind of material once I get into the bloodstream of it. [When the Hard Truths] characters say proper expressions that I’ve never heard of before, that’s great, and that is in the nature of bringing to life that particular territory.”
The key to Leigh’s enduring success is allowing his actors to improvise and working closely with his stars so that he can make accurate portraits of modern-day Britain. As the years have progressed, Leigh has expanded his horizons, continually capturing the country in all of its diversity, which has allowed him to triumph as one of the country’s most necessary filmmakers.
