Secrets and Lies

HOrtense, a young black woman whose adoptive mother has just died decides to seek out her birth mother. it is a bit of a shock to her to discover that her birth mother was white. BUt she perseveres in tracking her down and eventually manages to persuade her birth mother Cynthia, (Brenda Blethyn) to meet her. A tentative relationship develops between them, but CYnthia doesn't want anyone to know about HOrtense, fearful of upsetting her very touchy younger daughter. MEanwhile CYnthia's brother (Timothy Spall) and his wife (Phyllis Logan) have problems of their own. this is a wonderful film, with everyone in it giving terrific performances, especially Brenda Blethyn as the nervous, tearful Cynthia. it is very funny, but touching too.

Mike Leigh's style of direction begins with improvisation, so enabling the actors to build their understanding of their designated character from within and develop the script. Leigh is fascinated by suburban life and the quiet tragedies and absurdities that lie behind its front doors. Here we have a brother and a sister (Maurice and Cynthia) whose lives have been very different: both have secrets which are revealed. Maurice (Timothy Spall) reveals that despite their comparative wealth and success he and his wife Monica (Phyllis Logan) cannot have children. He has accepted this and he 'loves her to bits' but she continues to grieve and it is destroying them. Cynthia (Brenda Blethyn), a rather inadequate figure, is found by the young woman whom she gave up for adoption as a baby. Hortense (Marianne Jean-Baptiste) is black and the fact that Cynthia has to think hard to remember who her father could be indicates the chaos of her emotional life. As always with Leigh the film proceeds in such a way as to make the viewer feel like an observer rather than someone being entertained. Leigh's best work is 'Abigail's Party' but this is a worthy successor.

One of my favourite Mike Leigh films as well as simply being one of my favourite films (of any director). I’ve watched “Secrets and Lies” numerous times since I first saw it on Channel 4 in the mid 1990’s and watched it again last night, and it still has all the appeal that it had when I first watched and enjoyed it.Every one of the main cast are superb as well as actors (some of whom are familiar faces in Leigh’s films) who are on screen for literally only a few seconds are equally good, but whenever I’ve watched this film, I always notice just how brilliant Claire Rushbrook is in the role of “Roxanne”. I love Mike Leigh’s films and so it follows that for me, his directing in “Secrets and Lies” is fantastic. The story is in essence quite simple, but given the way the narrative plays out, that story is told really well, with perfect pace whilst also managing to avoid explaining all aspects of the story and of some of the characters history – leaving the viewer to make their own assumptions about some very important parts of the story – something that works really well here. But everything about “Secrets and Lies” seems to work really well…

Probably Mike Leigh's biggest international success, after winning the grand prize at Cannes it did quite well in the U.S., both at the box office and at the Oscars where it was nominated for nearly ever major award. At the time, it was arguably his most accessible film and one of his most accomplished, and it remains a masterpiece, a brutal but hopeful one. Like many of his films, there's a wonderful ensemble, and Blethyn, Jean-Baptiste and Spall are especially good, delivering career performances. Much of the drama revolves around the relationship between Blethyn's character and the daughter she put up for adoption, and each and every one of their scenes is remarkable. Their first scene together in the coffee shop (which plays out in an unbroken 8+ minute take) teeters between comedy and immense sorrow, and it may very well be best thing I've seen in any of Leigh's films. I originally thought it was a tremendous bit of writing that was also incredibly demanding towards its actors, but that's not how Leigh works - his films are typically 'written' during an extensive 6-month rehearsal, where he and his actors create the scenes and dialogue through improvisation. They shape and edit this material, getting it all on paper, so by the time they get to shooting, everything is tightly scripted. However, given the way the lines and action have been conceived, the screenplay remains a very organic extension of the performers themselves. Leigh isn't the only filmmaker who's worked in this manner (and that number grows when you consider filmmakers who have crafted scenes, if not entire films, this way), but among those who are still alive and active, he certainly has gotten the most out of this approach, and "Secrets & Lies" is a marvelous example of it.Despite its success, the DVD for this film went out-of-print in the U.S. many years ago, but thankfully it's been reissued on Blu-Ray in the U.K., and if you live in the States, I highly recommend getting a region compatible or region free player and importing this disc, because it's a wonderful looking disc. The detail is wonderful, the film grain is all intact, and the transfer is as good as one would hope, with no glaring artifacts - it looks like a film shot on film without any tomfoolery to compromise that. Certainly the best way to see this film at home, and if you're new to Mike Leigh, it's a good place to start.