Unforgettable anti-heroine anchors Hard Truths, Peg O' My Heart a facile horror

The story: British cinema emeritus Mike Leigh, a dramatist of tragicomic everyday realism, observes the relationship between two middle-aged sisters of clashing temperaments in London's Afro-Caribbean working-class community.

- Whang Yee Ling

HARD TRUTHS (PG13) 97 minutes, opens on May 29 ★★★★

Marianne Jean-Baptiste collected two dozen best actress prizes for her first Leigh role since the 1996 Cannes Palme d'Or winner Secrets & Lies.

She is volcanic, starring as angry, lonely, paranoid germaphobic housewife Pansy, who is introduced in Hard Truths waking from a deep sleep gasping in panic and then spending the day — like all her days — berating her doctor, her dentist, sundry strangers and sales assistants.

Her plumber husband (David Webber) and 22-year-old layabout son (Tuwaine Barrett) have been harangued into mute submission. They are the saddest collateral wreckage of her vitriol that is triggered by even infant clothes.

"What's a baby got pockets for?" she sputters, face gnarled in revulsion.

She has a point. Leigh is a director legendary for his intensive workshopping, and the shockingly disagreeable yet bluntly funny Pansy is a unique creation built from his and his actress' 14-week rehearsal.