ElMaruecan82
Some life incidents are so shameful we wish we could just erase them from memory and move forward. But in real life, circumstances force us to resort to secrets and lies, no malice behind it, just survival instinct. But you can't buy peace of mind by credit; there comes a time when you pay the bill and the longer you've been lingering on your secrets, the more emotionally devastating the effects are, but out of the chaos, something positive can come, you've got to take the bad with the good, and vice versa."Secrets & Lies", Golden Palm winner of 1996, opens with Cynthia (Brenda Blethyn), a sad-eyed box factory worker, with a squeaky voice that hints us about her emotional vulnerability. This is a woman in such a desperate need for love something from the past must have derailed her life. Indeed, she had two daughters from illegitimate relationships (one might be a rape). Hortense, a black woman, played by Marianne Jean-Baptiste, was born from the first pregnancy and was adopted by a black family. We meet her at her adoptive mother's funeral and after two months of grief, she decided to find her natural mother. The second girl is Roxanne (Claire Rushbrook), a soon-to-be 21-year-old girl, working as a street sweeper. Between Roxanne and Cynthia, you can't really call it maternal love; it's a sort of one-sided love-and-hate relationship, Hortense had luckily prevented from. From what it seems, her adoption was more of a blessing. She's no sweeper but an independent and articulate optometrist."Secrets & Lies" follows the path that will lead Hortense to Cynthia and concludes on the revelation, one that will affect Cynthia's life but by a snowball effect all the family members who based their relationship on other secrets and other lies. There's an extraordinary sequence where one confession leads to another, and we feel the pains and the cries as profoundly as if we were parts of these families. I never saw a Mike Leigh film until "Secrets & Lies" but now, this is a director I'm looking forward to discovering. I've never felt so strongly toward a director's work after one film, ever since I discovered John Cassavetes through his masterpiece "A Woman Under the Influence".And the comparison extends to the performance of Brenda Blethyn as Cynthia, perhaps the only acting to equal Gena Rowlands. Cynthia is such a sweet, tender and compassionate woman, punctuating her words with 'sweethearts' and 'darling' in such a way you can't ever feel angry toward her. Except for Roxanne who's in a rush to celebrate her 21st birthday, and go live with her boyfriend, a carpenter named Paul (Lee Ross). The dysfunctional mother-and-daughter relationship doesn't have a specific root, but something's eating Cynthia and creates a sort of existential block, if you don't come to term with your past, how can you ever face the present let alone the future? That's the question this truly life-changing and cathartic movie asks.And "Secrets & Lies" accomplishes other miracles; for one thing, it's a triumph of acting. Blethyn is so extraordinary I can't understand why she didn't win an Oscar. The film had two acting nominations, but everyone was Oscar-worthy. They don't play characters but people and so authentically they remind you someone of your entourage, maybe yourself. Maurice, Cynthia's brother, played by Timothy Spall, is a photographer who does well in his job but whose menage doesn't stand on solid pillars. Monica (Phyllis Young) is irritable, distant and spends so much time taking care of the house you wonder what she tries to compensate, and why she fails to respect her husband.It all comes down to repressed feelings, causing people reunited by love to be estranged from each other, and it'll take one outsider, Hortense, to throw the bombshell. And the build-ups were so meticulously constructed that any display of emotions is rewarding. This is not just a triumph of acting but directing too, Leigh stages his film like in theater with single-take scenes relying on emotions, not action, whether a phone call where Blethyn's facial expressions goes from suspicion to confusion, or during the café scene, where she can't remember having a relationship with a black man, and then you can pinpoint the realization instantly coming with her tearful reaction. And when Hortense asks Cynthia if she has a boyfriend, then Cynthia says she's been in enough trouble, she cracks up and cries again. It's like an emotional roller-coaster proving that indeed some situations are so tragic you better laugh about them.Speaking of laughs, the film isn't all shouting and crying, most of the time, it's quiet and even provides us some comical moments, especially with the little portrait montage. But I suspect most viewers would stay on guard, expecting an ending à la "Requiem for a Dream" but what do you know, the film manages to surprise the viewers again and ends happily. And that it took that angle is the proof of its maturity and intelligence. These are people who lived unhappy for years and could finally take a new start once they came to terms with the past, it's not a life-changing experience as Maurice is still a photographer, he still loves his wife, and Hortense didn't have any problem before meeting Cynthia, she doesn't have any after but something changed definitely, and for the best.Indeed, after this tough emotional journey, it was the perfect ending, one that shows that for all the secrets and lies that can poison our lives, we can still count on love, respect and understanding from the people we love. This is a triumph of acting, directing and storytelling and yet that feels so documentary-like real, like a sort of slice of lives of real people with real problem and coming to the realization that problems are inevitable parts of life and the real thrill is to overcome them.
Alenbalz
A very good movie: I was expecting a spy movie but instead got a movie exploring prejudices, relationships and family bonds. The acting is superb by all involved, in fact you can easily forget you are watching a movie, everything is so real and natural. Too often you see movies about broken families as being the accepted norm, this movie goes that extra step and shows us in a very powerful way, how blood is thicker than water. A colored grieving young lady, manages to track down her biological mother after 26 years and in doing so manages to bring together several dysfunctional families and forces them to face and overcome their repressed prejudices. A powerful movie (not a fairy tale) full of human emotions and compassion, where love finally wins. (you'll need a box of tissues).
