Secrets and Lies Movie Review
Mike Leigh became the darling of international film festivals and archives in 1986. I dutifully attempted to watch a selection of the Leigh oeuvres at that time. 1976's Nuts in May was nothing special, but okay; at least I could make out the dialogue in that one. Then, in rapid succession, I found myself chain-drinking endless cups of tea and coffee after walking out on a string of Leigh flicks: 1980's Grown Ups, 1982's Home Sweet Home, 1983's Meantime, 1984's Four Days in July. The thick dialects were impossible for me to decipher without benefit of subtitles. With Secrets and Lies, Mike Leigh became a world-class, Oscar-nominated film director. And I still had trouble plowing through the dialects, at least during a LOOONG series of introductory sequences (some extraneous) that set the plot in motion. I like the late character actress Irene Handl (1900–87) just fine, but if she were the central character in any of the movies in which I saw her, I'd reach for the mute button. THIS is my dilemma with the Oscar-nominated Brenda Blethyn, a fine actress, with a face that wells up with enough raw emotion to ignite a dozen soap operas, and a (cultivated) screechy voice like Handl's that is painful to listen to during the course of two hours and 22 minutes. Blethyn as Cynthia lives out her dreary life with her sullen daughter Roxanne (Claire Rush-brook). Cynthia sees less of her brother Maurice (Timothy Spall) than she would like because she can't stand his wife Monica (Phyllis Logan) and vice-a versa. Into this cozy group, a sophisticated optometrist (renamed Hortense by her adopted parents) comes looking for Cynthia, her birth mother. Marianne Jean-Baptiste is quite wonderful as the well-read, soft-spoken young woman who is determined to get to know her mother after the deaths of the parents who raised her. There's a wrap-up which is, for all the surface grit, deeply false and way too pat. In real-life families, the revelation of secrets and the exposure of lies don't get resolved in a few moments of hugs and tears. They invariably lead to violent brawls and long years of silence between emerging family factions. Even though it's a pseudo-depiction of life rather than an honest one, Secrets and Lies IS the breakthrough film for which Leigh will be best remembered. The clothes, as always in a Leigh film, are ghastly.
1995 (R) 142m/C GB Brenda Blethyn, Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Timothy Spall, Claire Rushbrook, Phyllis Logan, Lee Ross, Ron Cook, Leslie Manville, Irene Handl; Cameos: Alison Steadman; D: Mike Leigh; W: Mike Leigh; C: Dick Pope; M: Andrew Dickson. Cannes Film Festival ‘96: Best Actress (Blethyn), Best Film; Golden Globe Awards ‘97: Best Actress (Blethyn); Independent Spirit Awards ‘97: Best Foreign Film; Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards ‘96: Best Actress (Blethyn), Best Director (Leigh), Best Film; Nominations: Academy Awards ‘96: Best Actress (Blethyn), Best Director (Leigh), Best Picture, Best Supporting Actress (Jean-Baptiste), Best Writing; British Academy Awards ‘96: Best Actor (Spall), Best Actress (Blethyn), Best Director (Leigh), Best Film, Best Original Screenplay, Best Supporting Actress (Jean-Baptiste); Cesar Awards ‘97: Best Foreign Film; Directors Guild of America Awards ‘96: Best Director (Leigh); Golden Globe Awards ‘97: Best Film–Drama, Best Supporting Actress (Jean-Baptiste); Screen Actors Guild Award ‘96: Best Actress (Blethyn); Writers Guild of America ‘96: Best Original Screenplay. VHS