Aarcflick

 Some people bring happiness and positivity to the world, uplifting the lives of those around them, and others make flowers wilt and milk curdle wherever they go. As Pansy, Marianne Jean-Baptiste embodies the latter class in “Hard Truths,” following her reunion with “Secrets & Lies” director Mike Leigh, with her richest character yet (not financially speaking, of course, although we’d all be millionaires if we had a penny for every biting complaint that falls from Pansy’s lips). “Hard Truths” arrives more than 50 years after Leigh’s first film, “Bleak Moments,” which marks the end of a career of harsh looks at British working-class life. Frankly, that vague-sounding title seems more suited to a Criterion Collection boxed set of her work than to her latest (but not last, we hope) film. A return to intimate kitchen realism after the grand-scale ambition of several relatively expansive period films — Topsy-Turvy, Vera Drake, Mr. Turner and Peterloo — the film offers just a glimmer...