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Secrets & Lies

  • 1996
  • R
  • 2h 16m
IMDb RATING
8.0/10
50K
YOUR RATING
Brenda Blethyn and Marianne Jean-Baptiste in Secrets & Lies (1996)
Home video trailer from October Films
Play trailer0:31
1 Video
41 Photos
Psychological DramaComedyDrama

Following the death of her adoptive parents, a successful young black optometrist establishes contact with her biological mother -- a lonely white factory worker living in poverty in East Lo... Read allFollowing the death of her adoptive parents, a successful young black optometrist establishes contact with her biological mother -- a lonely white factory worker living in poverty in East London.Following the death of her adoptive parents, a successful young black optometrist establishes contact with her biological mother -- a lonely white factory worker living in poverty in East London.

  • Director
    • Mike Leigh
  • Writer
    • Mike Leigh
  • Stars
    • Timothy Spall
    • Brenda Blethyn
    • Phyllis Logan
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • IMDb RATING
    8.0/10
    50K
    YOUR RATING
    • Director
      • Mike Leigh
    • Writer
      • Mike Leigh
    • Stars
      • Timothy Spall
      • Brenda Blethyn
      • Phyllis Logan
    • 193User reviews
    • 65Critic reviews
    • 92Metascore
  • See production info at IMDbPro
    • Nominated for 5 Oscars
      • 36 wins & 47 nominations total

    Videos1

    Secrets & Lies
    Trailer 0:31
    Secrets & Lies

    Photos41

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    Top cast67

    Edit
    Timothy Spall
    Timothy Spall
    • Maurice
    Brenda Blethyn
    Brenda Blethyn
    • Cynthia
    Phyllis Logan
    Phyllis Logan
    • Monica
    Claire Rushbrook
    Claire Rushbrook
    • Roxanne
    Marianne Jean-Baptiste
    Marianne Jean-Baptiste
    • Hortense Cumberbatch
    Elizabeth Berrington
    Elizabeth Berrington
    • Jane
    Michele Austin
    Michele Austin
    • Dionne
    Lee Ross
    Lee Ross
    • Paul
    Lesley Manville
    Lesley Manville
    • Social Worker
    Ron Cook
    Ron Cook
    • Stuart
    Emma Amos
    Emma Amos
    • Girl with Scar
    Brian Bovell
    Brian Bovell
    • Hortense's Brother
    Trevor Laird
    Trevor Laird
    • Hortense's Brother
    Clare Perkins
    Clare Perkins
    • Hortense's Sister-in-Law
    Elias Perkins McCook
    • Hortense's Nephew
    Jane Mitchell
    • Senior Optometrist
    • (as June Mitchell)
    Janice Acquah
    • Junior Optician
    Keylee Jade Flanders
    Keylee Jade Flanders
    • Girl in Optician's
    • (as Keeley Flanders)
    • Director
      • Mike Leigh
    • Writer
      • Mike Leigh
    • All cast & crew
    • Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

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    Storyline

    Edit

    Did you know

    Edit
    • Trivia
      To add a spontaneous effect to the performances, Mike Leigh met with each actor individually and only told them what their character would know at the beginning of the film. As filming progressed the actors were hearing the secrets for the very first time.
    • Goofs
      A statement of Hortense's suggests that her family comes from Barbados, and a stamp on a letter among her adoptive mother's papers is almost identifiable as Barbadian on my DVD, but when she puts on a West Indian accent in one scene, apparently imitating her mother, it sounds like broad Jamaican or generic "West Indian", certainly not Bajan, which is a very distinctive accent. However, her decision to playfully mock her mother by using a generic accent may have been intentional.
    • Quotes

      Maurice: Secrets and lies! We're all in pain! Why can't we share our pain? I've spent my entire life trying to make people happy, and the three people I love the most in the world hate each other's guts, and I'm in the middle! I can't take it anymore!

    • Connections
      Featured in Siskel & Ebert: Extreme Measures/Secrets & Lies/2 Days in the Valley/Caught/Ed's Next Move (1996)
    • Soundtracks
      Happy Birthday to You
      Words by Patty S. Hill & Mildred J. Hill (as Mildred Hill)

      © Keith Prowse Music Pub Co. Ltd./EMI

      Sung by the family at Roxanne's birthday party

    User reviews193

    Featured review
    10/10

    3-bucket tearjerker of hiding one's pain in plain sight

    With modern films placing so much emphasis on visuals and sound & the stage specializing in avant-garde drama or comedy, it's rare to find old-fashioned storytelling outside of books. But it's rare at any time or in any medium to find a work combining such smartness & sensitivity as "Secrets & Lies." After the deaths of her adoptive parents, urbane young London optometrist Hortense (Jean-Baptiste) searches for her biological origins and locates her mother: alcoholic, neurotic, once-promiscuous factory worker Cynthia (Blethyn, in one of the finest film performances of all time). Each is stunned to find something about the other that neither knew: that the mother is white and the daughter is black! The film has sideplots rather than subplots, two other stories developed in depth, parallel to the main story, although Leigh masterfully uses them to support rather than weaken the central relationship between Cynthia & Hortense. Cynthia's daughter Roxanne (Rushbrook) is coming of age and exploring love, work and independence while struggling between the love, pity, resentment & disgust she holds for her mother. Cynthia's brother Maurice (Spall, a roly-poly, English Jimmy Stewart), a prosperous but overworked studio photographer, gives the family name a facade of middle-class respectability even as he & his wife Monica (Logan) carefully conceal an embarrassment of their own. Through a variety of small, seemingly random but fascinating illustrations like the Canterbury Tales, the film hammers home its theme: that lying & deception become not just easy but casual in an age that emphasizes individualism & responsibility, where you assume that no one, not even the closest of your relatives, wants to hear about your problems. Rather than help one another, each suffers alone, while every lie they so readily spin must constantly be fed with more deception. A story that could have been both preachy & crushingly depressing is cut with just the right amount of humor in all the right places, until the heartbreaking climax that is as powerful as any ever filmed. There isn't an air of judgment or lecturing morality, no attempt to make a sweeping commentary of society. If any such message is delivered it must be derived from the story. In a superb cast Blethyn stands out as the haunted, tormented Cynthia, hurt & angered by the contempt & pity she sees in the eyes of her brother, sister-in-law & daughter as she staves off nervous breakdown with the bottle. Yet she can't bring herself to turn away again from the child she gave up long ago, even though only she knows how much pain lies ahead if she doesn't. Jean-Baptiste provides a stark contrast as the cool-headed but intense young woman who might be repulsed by the coarse, painful world in which Cynthia lives, yet never shows any reluctance to enter it. There's a spareness about the film (so many scenes go without music that you're often surprised to remember that there IS a music score) that engrosses the viewer, making him concentrate, rather than giving an air of cheapness. It's not Shakespeare or Greek theater, since no one gets stabbed or finds out he's married his mother, but Tennessee Williams or Anton Chekhov would have been envious of this effort.
    • tom-darwin
    • Apr 21, 2006
    • Permalink

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    FAQ20

    • How long is Secrets & Lies?Powered by Alexa
    • Did Paul cause the accident that scarred the woman Maurice photographs?

    Details

    Edit
    • Release date
      • February 28, 1997 (United States)
    • Countries of origin
      • United Kingdom
      • France
    • Language
      • English
    • Also known as
      • Secretos y mentiras
    • Filming locations
      • Junction of Whitehouse Way and Hampden Way, Southgate, London, England, UK(Roxanne and Paul sit at the bus stop)
    • Production companies
      • CiBy 2000
      • Channel Four Films
      • Thin Man Films
    • See more company credits at IMDbPro

    Box office

    Edit
    • Budget
      • $4,500,000 (estimated)
    • Gross US & Canada
      • $13,417,292
    • Opening weekend US & Canada
      • $60,813
      • Sep 29, 1996
    • Gross worldwide
      • $13,417,292
    See detailed box office info on IMDbPro

    Tech specs

    Edit
    • Runtime
      2 hours 16 minutes
    • Color
      • Color
    • Sound mix
      • Dolby Digital
    • Aspect ratio
      • 1.85 : 1

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