Secrets & Lies delves into social issues with delicate aplomb and across-the-board incredible acting, and stands as one of writer-director Mike Leigh's most powerful works. Read critic reviews
Secrets & Lies
1996, Drama, 2h 22m
45 Reviews 10,000+ RatingsWhat to know
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Movie Info
After her adoptive mother dies, Hortense (Marianne Jean-Baptiste), a successful black eye doctor, seeks out her birth mother. She's shocked when her research leads her to a lower-class white woman, Cynthia (Brenda Blethyn). At first Cynthia denies the claim, but she eventually admits to birthing Hortense as a teenager, and the two begin to bond. However, when Cynthia invites Hortense to a family barbecue, Cynthia's already tense relationship with her family becomes even more complicated.
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Rating: R
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Genre: Drama
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Original Language: English (United Kingdom)
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Director: Mike Leigh
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Producer: Simon Channing Williams
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Writer: Mike Leigh
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Release Date (Theaters): original
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Release Date (Streaming):
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Box Office (Gross USA): $13.4M
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Runtime:
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Distributor: October Films
Cast & Crew
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Critic Reviews for Secrets & Lies
Audience Reviews for Secrets & Lies
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Mike Leigh's steady direction is really impressive, and he creates a largely improvised family drama that surprises us with many nuances and for being so engaging, relying especially on two outstanding Oscar-nominated performances by Brenda Blethyn and Marianne Jean-Baptiste.
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The reuniting of a long lost daughter with an unlikely mother is likely the strongest Mike Leigh film of them all. The character portrayals are brilliant and the script flows with the proper levels of emotion and surprising good humour.
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'Secrets & Lies' is a literary piece of original work in cinema, showcasing director-writer Mike Leigh's unrivaled style of storytelling, that is as much a human comedy as it is a high quality drama. I never knew of Mike Leigh's famous 'improvisation-acting' technique prior to watching this, and the more I look back, the more I realize that's what allowed me to fall in love with the film in the first place. We're faced with characters so natural and substantial, they could easily be people in our lives. They face completely human dramas, things like keeping secrets, coping with death and mediating between relatives who don't get along - and with these elements coming together perfectly, the story is told from beginning to end without needing to catch a breath. Every scenario tells us more about each character, each dilemma, and in doing so, allows us to care more how everything turns out. I've joked that there's enough content in 'Secrets & Lies' that it could've been a miniseries, but I'm glad it's this instead. I'm convinced this is Mike Leigh's masterpiece and it's definitely one of my favorite movies of all time.
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What do you do when the baby you put up for adoption 25 years ago suddenly calls you out of the blue and wants to meet -- especially if you are not all that happy with your life at the moment. This movie takes us through that. What I found amazing is that I read that most of the lines were improv. The actors were given their roles, but no actual script.
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