Note: The following article contains discussion of themes including depression.
Whether it's self-diagnosing TikToks or horror movies in which trauma is the real monster, it's safe to say we are culturally obsessed with mental health.
But with a lack of accessible mental-health care facilities, today we often end up naming our issues without much further insight other than the vague psychoanalysis offered by therapy-focused social media profiles.
Where Mike Leigh's excellent movie Hard Truths differs from the deluge of mental health focused media is in its refusal to offer diagnosis.
Pansy (Marianne Jean-Baptiste) is not the easiest woman to get along with. She bickers with shop assistants, nags her husband Curtley (David Webber) and son Moses (Tuwaine Barrett), and isolates herself from those around her.
When she isn't obsessively cleaning her spotless house, she is napping with a constantly-knitted brow, or avoiding her sister Chantelle's (Michele Austin) warm invitations.
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There is a cloud that follows Pansy around, one that hangs over Jean-Baptiste's unfaltering depiction of a woman in desperate need of help, although she doesn't know what kind.
When Pansy visits the doctor and the dentist complaining of stomach issues and a toothache, the naturalistic dialogue ensures the NHS-focused scenes could be ripped from any British citizen's life.
As Pansy bounces from one medical professional to another, the problem is glaringly obvious and it's certainly not physical. She wants the attention of a physician but she doesn't have the courage to address the core issue: her mental health.
Instead, the overworked health care staff fumble around for a physical cause, before ending the appointment understandably worn out by the miserable patient before them.
Hard Truths is a tragi-comedy filled with the depressive rants of Pansy that are comically illustrative even when detailing her severe dislike of other people's happiness and her fear of birds. These moments are as humorous as they are painful.
To any audience member who has experienced depression, Pansy's diagnosis is clear. You can recognise her lack of tolerance, her irritability and bitter response to smiling faces as if looking into your own depressive mirror.
However it is not Pansy alone that struggles with her mental health. Chantelle's daughters Aleisha (Sophia Brown) and Kayla (Ani Nelson) are so determined to centre positivity in their lives that they refuse to be honest about their own hardships.
The movie's inclusion of their minute denials offers a subtle dig at the toxic positivity movement that booms online with influencers proclaiming "good vibes only" and a "positive mental attitude".
But instead of the inane therapised buzzwords that fill our social media feeds, Hard Truths explores the reality of mental health when no one has the language to help, refusing to use the prescriptive terminology that is all too common today.
In an increasingly common cinematic trend, many movies that tackle mental health in all its varieties often do so rather obtusely.
Sometimes trauma comes in the shape of a smiley demon intent on brutally murdering anyone with a violent past (Smile, Smile 2), sometimes it comes in the form of parental ghosts that loom larger than the metaphor of grief itself (All of Us Strangers) and other times parents' barrage of mental health chatter only serves to push a depressive child closer to the brink (The Son).
In horror, trauma is an easy crutch, while many dramatic movies now feel as if we are being continuously goaded into tears by the relatability of their subject matter.
But through a microcosm of English life, Hard Truths offers a difficult depiction of depression, one which avoids exploitative or extremely traumatic scenes, the empty platitudes of the well-meaning onlookers or overt metaphors of mental health.
Mike Leigh offers the type of mental health movie we need more of, which is harrowingly relatable in its insistence on the mundane.
Hard Truths is out now in cinemas.
If you've been affected by the issues raised in this story, organisations who can offer support include the NHS, Samaritans on 116 123 or Mind on 0300 123 3393. Readers in the US are encouraged to visit mentalhealth.gov.
