Movie Review: In ‘Hard Truths,’ Marianne Jean-Baptiste gives the performance of the year

Pansy is angry and she doesn’t know why. We all have days like that, when we snap at strangers for a minor infraction: The person who wants the spot in the parking lot that you’re not ready to leave, the couple behaving a little inappropriately in a public place, the chipper doctor making pleasantries when you’re in pain.

It’s the stuff road rage is made of: Irrational, primal, real and inescapable. Sometimes it’s a loving family member that bears the brunt of the fury. For the most, part we all leave the vortex eventually and hopefully without too much damage in the wake.

But for Pansy, the unforgettable heroine of Mike Leigh’s film “Hard Truths” portrayed by Marianne Jean-Baptiste, that simmering discontent is her all day, every day. It’s life, and she can’t break the cycle.

She’s a tornado of unhappiness, spiraling through the mundanities of everyday life with seething anger and a