Roxanne drives her mother crazy. Maurice never speaks to his niece. Cynthia has a shock for her family. Monica can't talk to her husband. Hortense has never met her mother.
After her adoptive mother dies, Hortense, a successful black optometrist, seeks out her birth mother. She's shocked when her research leads her to Cynthia, a working class white woman.
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SECRETS AND LIES is a 1996 film by Mike Leigh that, appropriately enough, is concerned with the things that members of a family conceal from each other. Hortense (Marianne Jean-Baptiste), a black woman in London who has made a successful career as an optician, knew from a young age that she was adopted, but only after her adopted mother's death does she decide to look up her birth mother. Hortense is shocked to find that it is Cynthia (Brenda Blethyn), not just white but living in near-poverty and wallowing in regret. Cynthia has a tumultuous relationship with her acknowledged daughter Roxanne (Claire Rushbrook), who she fears to be repeating her own youthful mistakes. Cynthia also finds its hard to relate to her brother Maurice (Timothy Spall) and his cold wife Monica (Phyllis Logan), who have done well from a photo shop business. Hortense's entry into this family ultimately shatters their miserable status quo, but not without some heartbreak on the way. At this point in his career, Mike Leigh had perfected a filmmaking technique by which he had his actors live out their roles in everyday situations in the street for weeks before he started shooting. Consequently, by the time these actors were captured on film, they are totally convincing as their characters, and the characters are fleshed out through the little details that Leigh allowed to bring to them in improvising. The viewer feels that he knows these people deeply. Leigh also has a way of mixing pathos and humour. He not only will insert a comedic shot after a poignant one, but he'll then present ambiguous images where the viewer is unsure whether he should laugh or cry. While the acting and that dash of humour is quite powerful, there are elements that hold me back from universally praising this film. I've never been impressed by Leigh's use of music, which feels cheap, and only one shot (a deftly timed outdoor barbecue) was truly impressive in its mis-en-scène. And I find Leigh's previous film Naked a slightly more successful application of his art. Still, the acting in SECRETS AND LIES is really something, and I would generally recommend this film.
If I ever get around to drawing up a list of my top 25 favorite non-blockbuster movies, Secrets and Lies would roll in very near the top. I have watched it a few times and expect I will continue to do so periodically. The acting is phenomenal. It is an ensemble cast, for sure, no superstars, but three of the main actors: Timothy Spall, Brenda Blethyn and Claire Rushbrook, are among the best that Great Britain has produced. What I first saw this film, it was literally the first time I had seen those three perform, and I quickly learned to seek them out in other projects. I believe the movie won the top award at the Cannes festival, and Brenda Blethyn won a deserved Academy Oscar award. The story is a powerful one, and allows for emotional growth in a few of the characters. A few Mike Leigh movies share more than just his favorite repeat performers: they also include a big emotional reveal at the end that really pack a wallop. This movie, Mr. Harvey Lights a Candle, and All or Nothing share that element. I have read that Leigh makes his cast aware of the story but allows them leeway in improvised dialogue, sometimes when he surprises them during filming, but I haven’t studied his technique in any detail. I could go on and on about this favorite movie of mine, but I wouldn’t want to risk diminishing the impact for anyone who hasn’t seen the movie yet. Just watch and enjoy.
**A good work, currently forgotten.** Just when I think I've seen all sorts of movies about racism, issues of race or prejudice, there's something new that comes out of nowhere, or some meritorious, well-made effort that's worth seeing. This film, initially, seemed to me just a sweet and average drama in which a black woman, very successful, decides to discover the identity of her biological mother and discovers that she is white, and the difficulties and dramas of her family. It was nominated for six Oscars, losing them one by one, but without any demerits. Observing the film very closely, we can easily verify that it is not a visual or effects spectacle. On a technical level, it's a lukewarm, not to say uninteresting, uninteresting film. Even the soundtrack, which is usually a technical device that even the most regular movies tend to improve on, is pretty forgettable. Where the film really scores favorably is with regard to the script and direction. It's not a flashy movie, with a complicated or far-fetched story. Things are simple, direct and solid, and the story told is credible, effective. The script, which does not come from the North American milieu in which ethnicity, skin color and financial position seem inseparable, works well with these elements and puts in counterpoint the differences, quite strong, between the mother and the daughter, allowing the public to glimpse the intimacy of those lives. Mike Leigh is a solid director who gives us consistent and remarkable work, visible in a particular care with details, cinematography and work with the actors. And, in fact, the work of the actors is equally remarkable here: Brenda Blethyn gives us one of the most anthological works of his career, the same can be said of Timothy Spall. Marianne Jean-Baptiste, who could and should have more protagonism and attention, is not so lucky and goes much more unnoticed.
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