Review of The Secret: Dare to Dream (2020) by Brent_Marchant — 19 Aug 2020

While admittedly schmaltzy, sometimes predictable, cloyingly cheerful and thinly written, this long-simmering love story based on the metaphysical teachings of the wildly successful self-help video and book "The Secret" is clearly an easy target for cynical critics and skeptics of the material's basic premises.

What's more, the look and feel of the film often seem like something straight off The Hallmark Channel or Lifetime Television. Nevertheless, this crowd-pleasing take on law of attraction philosophy does a more than capable job of illustrating its rudimentary principles without belaboring the "teaching" aspect, working its ideas into the narrative seamlessly, subtly and effectively.

This is not groundbreaking cinema, but it is by far one of the best fictionalized cinematic adaptations of self-help material for the big screen that I have ever seen. Even if somewhat sappy, it's refreshing to see an uplifting release come along that offers viewers hope and inspiration during trying times -- or any time for that matter.