Pansy, the central character in “Hard Truths,” British director Mike Leigh’s first film in six years, is one of the most unpleasant, off-putting and utterly exhausting characters to grace a movie screen in years. And the fact that we feel deeply for Pansy by the end of the 97 minutes of Leigh’s spare and wrenching gem is one of the small miracles of an extraordinarily moving film.
From “Naked” to “Secrets & Lies,” “Vera Drake” to “Topsy Turvy,” “Happy-Go-Lucky” to “Mr. Turner,” Leigh has been a craftsman whose films are impressive vehicles for creating empathy for difficult characters — or, rather, for difficult people, so rich and true do they appear.