I’m Not Crying, You’re Crying: Hard Truths
Mike Leigh’s superb drama makes the most of his actors and actresses and draws us in with a compelling story. Dick Pope’s beautiful cinematography and Tania Reddin’s great editing allow time to tell the story — there’s also subtle details such as the biker funeral memoralising their Dad passing the mourning sisters by; the cheeky lad on a bike who zips in and out pedestrians or the contrast of the sisters’ flats — one pops with colour, light and beautiful tulips, the other is sterile, netural/neutralised and beige.
All is not well with Pansy Deacon (Marianne Jean-Baptiste). Living in a well-presented house with her husband Curtley (David Webber) and adult son Moses (Tuwaine Barrett), she cleans and scrubs and loses her temper when faced with mess, disrespect or frustrating situations. Pansy’s life contrasts with her hairdresser sister Chantelle (Michele Austin) where there is laughter, relationship, kindness, expressed love and affection. She has warm relationships with the people around her and her daughters.
But very early on we start to sense that Pansy isn’t a well woman — she fears insects, birds, animals such as foxes in the garden, mess, contamination, dirt, uncleanness, going outside, elevators; the motives, intentions and expressions of other people, racism, her son’s future, aloneness — and she’s exhausted. She fears leaving the house and worries about her son, when he does. She fears being alone, but lays into anyone verbally who gets near her. Curtley tries to care for his wife, who appears very critical and controlling, only to get pushed away or rebuked. It’s only when Pansy goes to her mother’s grave with her sister that we start to get a sense of their childhood was like when their mother’s partner (or perhaps their father/step-father left the family) and the five years of grief and horror she’s been carrying around with her since her mother’s death. And of the responsibilities put on Pansy as the elder sister when her mother was forced into solo parenting and providing for her family.
Pansy’s exhaustion, fears and phobias lead her to find disrespect and confrontation everywhere. Her inbuilt response has become ‘NO!’ There’s a terrific set-piece where she argues with two women in a supermarket queue — at the same time (and the cashier for good measure). Or faces off against an exasperated man trying to find a parking space in a car park which is built over his old school. She feels hated and unwanted — and yet pushes those who want to love her away. All of this is starting to show in her body too — scratched scalp, pain in her jaw, her teeth, her stomach.
Moses hides in his room (and perhaps shares his mother’s sadness and generational disappointment). However, he walks — despite bullying — and tries to do something. And it’s Moses who brings some beautiful optimism at the end.
I love Curtley’s mate Virgil (Jonathan Livingstone), who has a fun fact for every occasion.
Marianne Jean-Baptiste’s performance as Pansy is tremendous — there’s an impressive moment when she goes from humility and wonder to laughing to crying and keening in the blink of an eye. Moses has given her some Mother’s Day Flowers — and she’s shocked to be seen, heard and loved. Pansy also produces some fabulous ranty monologues (and while we laugh, to an extent she’s right — why does the baby have pockets in its clothes?) However, Pansy’s irritation and frustration with life and people turns to wrath, rage and hurt — and there’s a mediative moment as we see her horror at what she’s said and who she’s become, and wondering where it will all end. Her words are hurting others and hurting herself. Interestingly in some of the things she’s said, we get a sense of what was said to her and who might have said it (in the past or in childhood) and of the tough life she’s led. Her fears for her son are very real, but create a fear of the door not being shut properly and what or who might come in.
Sadly, rather than trying to get help and be with her family, she snaps and separates from her husband, banishing him to the couch and brutally telling him that she doesn’t love him or want to be anywhere near him. Painfully and boldly, we watch Pansy struggle to go outside or to put Moses’s Mother’s Day flowers in a vase. Curtley breaks and flings the flowers outside, weary and wounded. In his work, he hurts his back and there’s a terrible moment as he sits in pain, his wife unable to come near him due to her fear of touching germs, and he weeps, feeling incredibly alone. And goodness, so we’re all weeping too — for all of them. But not for Moses, we cheer for him! and Tuwaine Barrett’s beautiful acting as we see Moses dropping his guard, opening up, transforming.
The depth of the story and characters, the range of emotions, the lives lived, the vivacity of Chantelle and her daughter’s relationships; the stories shared at the hairdressers’. You never see this on screen, and to think that it’s improvised. You also really feel deeply for Pansy and desperately want her to seek help and freedom from all the things grieving and oppressing her.
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