Review of Secrets & Lies (1996) by Ally C — 07 Jan 2011

Secrets & Lies is about a successful black woman named Hortense (Marianne Jean-Baptiste) who tries to track down her birth mother after her adoptive mother has recently past away. It turns out that her real mother is a lower-class white factory worker named Cynthia (Brenda Blethyn), who has another daughter named Roxanne (Claire Rushbrook). Cynthia's brother Maurice (Timothy Spall) and his wife Monica (Phyllis Logan) have always been fond of Cynthia's daughter as she is the closest thing they've ever had to a daughter of their own (it is later revealed in a confrontation with the whole family that Monica is physically incapable of conceiving a child). Hortense contacts Cynthia and asks her if she would like to meet up, Cynthia is reluctant to do so at first but eventually agrees. When they meet each other at a train station, Cynthia believes that Hortense and the people involved with all the information have gotten things all mixed up but Cynthia eventually realizes that she did indeed have a sexual encounter with a black man when she was younger and gave birth to a child. She comes to accept her as her daughter and they start meeting each other regularly. Cynthia later invites Hortense to her daughter's twenty-first birthday at her brother Maurice's house, though she tells him and his wife that she's a mate from her job. When the birthday barbecue finally comes, all secrets and lies that Cynthia, Maurice, and Monica have all been withholding are exposed with incredibly high emotions.

Secrets & Lies is an incredible film. It is well known that Mike Leigh hardly works with a script, at least not in the typical fashion, as his films are built on a basic premise and basic characters. He works with his talented actors to build the characters he has written and together they create dialogue out of improvisations from the rehearsals for his films. With these rehearsals, Leigh writes the screenplay with the dialogue that the actors come up with giving an incredibly authentic feel to the exchanges between the actors. These rehearsals with his actors make for some really great performances when the actors finally get to actually shoot the scenes. This kind of preparation and execution is what makes Mike Leigh one of the best directors in the world today.

The performances by the whole cast are absolutely astounding. Oscar nominees Brenda Blethyn and Marianne Jean-Baptiste give powerhouse performances. The central performance by Brenda Blethyn is a tour-de-force of emotional acting. She is truly incredible. Marianne Jean-Baptiste, who also garnered an Oscar nomination, is a lot more subtle and whole lot more reserved than her counter-part, her performance was well deserving of her nomination.

Another thing to note are the long takes that Mike Leigh does in a couple of scenes, most notably the scene in the restaurant where Cynthia meets Hortense for the first time. By shooting this scene in one take, Leigh gives us the build up of emotions and boy does it pay off. It is a truly powerful scene. There is also a continuous shot during the barbecue that is quite good as well. Then there is the scene immediately after that where after Roxanne blows her birthday candles out and Cynthia reveals that Hortense is in fact her daughter. There are so many emotions that go on in that scene, it's truly incredible to watch. It's almost too much take in fact but it's really worth watching.

Secrets & Lies represents Mike Leigh's most successful film to date and its quite understandable as it's a film that as a viewer you can really relate to. It's a very powerful film and absolutely one of the best films of the '90s. A remarkable piece of cinema that I can't recommend enough. This film is really worth watching. 10/10.