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Brenda Blethyn, Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Timothy Spall, Phyllis Logan, and Claire Rushbrook star in "Secrets & Lies," a 1996 film written and directed by Mike Leigh. The script is actually improvised, with the actors learning what the characters learn as they go along.

Brenda Blethyn is Cynthia Rose Purley, a factory worker and single mother with an obnoxious daughter, Roxanne (Rushbrook). Cynthia is dependent for the occasional handout by her successful photographer brother, Maurice (Spall). Maurice lives in a lovely home with his wife (Logan); Cynthia can't stand her and the feeling is mutual. Maurice no longer has the relationship that he once had with his niece Roxanne, and this bothers him.

Cynthia gets a call one day from a woman named Hortense Cumberbatch (Jean-Baptiste) who claims to be the daughter she gave up for adoption. After some hemming and hawing, Cynthia agrees to meet her at a subway stop. When she meets Hortense, she's shocked. Hortense is black.

This is a wonderful, poignant, and funny story with just the right amount of drama and humor. The scene in the restaurant, when Cynthia says that Hortense couldn't possibly be her daughter because she's never been with a black man is absolutely priceless.

The performances are tremendous. Brenda Blethyn is marvelous as the fragile, needy, eager to please Cynthia, though the character gets a bit annoying with her high-pitched voice and constant talking. Timothy Spall plays a big man with a big heart and will bring one to tears toward the end of the film. It was great to see Phyllis Logan from Lovejoy in such a marvelous role, and she does a great job. Marianne Jean-Baptiste is wonderful as a successful young woman who fights to keep her equilibrium when she's in the midst of a family explosion.

Really enjoyed this -- and I guess the name Cumberbatch isn't as unusual as I thought.

In honor of my film class wrapping up this week, I will be counting down my top five favorite films we have watched for class. I begin with my #5 choice, Secrets and Lies, a Mike Leigh drama/comedy about the secrets and lies (shock) that tear apart a dysfunctional British family. Brenda Blethyn plays Cynthia Purley, the very dramatic and always crying single mother who is one day contacted by the daughter she gave up for adoption…who happens to be black. The look on Blethyn's face is priceless as she flashes back to a one night stand she had as a young lady.

Most would think Leigh's story would revolve around race relations, which is not the case at all (race is never an issue). Instead he revolves his story around the Purley family, a unit so torn apart from over the years that a simple family cook out turns into a soap opera. "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!" This memorable quote comes from Maurice Purley, brother to Cynthia and talented photographer. Maurice is your classic good guy, the passive patriarch who always tries to hold the family together. (The irony around his character is that he cannot conceive a child with his wife, Monica). You almost feel sorry for the successful Hortense, as if she would be better off not knowing her birth mother at all.

The actors are so talented in this film that Leigh, at times, uses no cuts during a scene. The camera stays in one spot as the actors' play out scenes that can last 10-15 minutes. After you get past the difficult British dialect (you may want to use captions while watching), you will feel as if you are that nosey neighbor who can't help but listen and enjoy the problems this family confronts…and that's no lie.

It took a second viewing of Mike Leigh's 'Secrets and Lies' to reveal the depth of its genius. I love character-driven drama, and this film succeeds in creating indelible portraits. Even the social worker is quirky and memorable instead of just furthering the plot and being patently sympathetic.

I could write quite a lot about Blethyn's riveting performance. How drained she must have been after sustaining a character who seems always at the height of emotional pressure. Opposite her, Jean-Baptiste seemed as cool and smooth as could be. The contrasts created by these personae even extended to costume and decor.

I decided to watch this movie again because after a BBC Shakespeare binge I wanted to see everything Ron Cook has been in. And while the Stuart scene is really somewhat incongruous to the rest of the family plot, Cook's scene as the bitter, drunk 't****r' works for me perfectly. So do the scenes of photo sessions -- and it's a matter of observing this film in terms of clarity of personal vision. The occupations of photographer and optometrist seem to lend metaphors of spirituality -- for Maurice, the ability to see people as they are, and for Hortense, the ability to understand how others see the world. The wall of smoke that Cynthia and Roxanne seem to keep in front of them. The disparity between the images created for the formal portraits and the truth of the personalities in them. In a distinctly un-sappy way, Leigh has explored the old adage that "the truth will set you free."

If one reads a paragraph describing the main plot -- the adopted child seeking out her birth mother -- a very clear idea of a movie-of-the-week story comes to mind. 'Secrets and Lies' is nothing like that, and shows a mastery of vision and a cast of great talent. My roommate agreed, saying he thought this was one of the best films he's seen this decade.

This is one of my very favorite movies of the last 10, even 20 years. For me, its greatness lies in the resonance of the story lines, the brilliant acting, (Brenda Blethyn, Marianne Jean-Baptiste and Timothy Spall all turned in Oscar-worthy turns, and the rest of the ensemble were all with them), and Mike Leigh's direction.

This is a feast of tremendous acting, by a most talented ensemble who really become their characters. The scenes play out very naturally, and you really feel a part of the story, with special empathy towards - in no particular order - Cynthia, Maurice and Hortense. As the film builds towards a showdown/climax at the birthday party, you can even take a step back and at least sympathize with Roxanne and even, Monica.

This rates 10/10 by this reviewer, who wishes that more directors - if they truly have a good story to tell - will shoot and edit the film in a way that appreciates the audience's intelligence and capacity to feel without being manipulated by a director's avant-garde(??) bag of tricks ...for comparison, perhaps see my scathing review of 21 Grams! What a contrast of styles!!!

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.

Leigh's process of using a lot of improv as well as withholding key character information from his actors is talked about a great deal. It's sort of Leigh's trademark. This process is used to great effect in this emotionally draining film. However, to me the key Leigh decision has to do with his camera.

For whatever reason Leigh loves to keep his camera still and his scenes uncluttered. The clearest example of this is how the first meeting of the adopted daughter and the birth mother is done basically as a single shot and take. The film has multiple deeply emotional moments filmed in medium shot with no master cutting and largely in a single take. This style-for lack of a better word-really gives a film a great intimacy and through that poignancy.

The film is-at is core-a mere domestic drama. But through the skill of the actors and Leigh's commitments to authenticity this film is so much more than its story. It is a great film from the 90's that is timeless.

One of rather a few main characters in Mike Leigh's Secrets & Lies is Timothy Spall's Maurice Purley, a photographer; husband; brother and father to rather a few of the other characters. There is an extended sequence during which he takes snapshots of a variety of different people as they pose for wedding photos, family portraits or just want to be snapped with their beloved cats. The sequence acts as an extremely brief glimpse into the lives of many different people, getting up to many different things and quite clearly at many different stages in their respective lives. But this is the essence of Leigh's film in the wider spectrum of things, Secrets & Lies being much more than a 'brief' glimpse at different lives and actually resembling more of a long and drawn out study of different people. The point is captured during the arguing couple's turn to be snapped. What they'll always see when they look back at the photo is the smiling, posing couple they were when they were caught on celluloid but what the photograph won't tell anyone else is what happened immediately pre and post the capture, that being an argument.

Secrets & Lies is the film that delves into the idyllic or relatively firm lives certain people lead and exposes the past or mistakes and how they do not just effect the individuals directly involved but other, more supposedly innocent, agents. Secrets & Lies is the 'pre-photograph' argument and the 'post-photograph' disagreement told around numerous characters amidst the backdrop of mid-nineties Britain.

Maurice Purley's sister is Cynthia Rose Purley (Blethyn), a troubled woman by the secrets she possesses on top of trying to aid her daughter Roxanne (Rushbrook) in her respective coming of age as she sweeps roads for a living and shares an uneasy but strictly balanced relationship with her mother. If one of them is going out, the other gets suspicious and you generally get the feeling if someone says something out of turn or relatively ambiguous, then arguments could well be the order of the day. Twinned with this and on a completely different tangent that will soon become entwined is the story of Hortense Cumberbatch (Jean-Baptiste), a young but very successful black woman whose adoptive mother has just died and she deems it worthy that now is the time to track down who her real mother was.

Needless to say, Cynthia is connected as they are seen sharing a drink rather gleefully together on the film's poster. But getting there is a quarter of the fun as this rather sad woman in Cynthia is established to be accordingly so before a relative bombshell is dropped that only the two of them, it is initially deemed, should know about. I think there is quite a bit to like about Secrets & Lies, and not just because of the exceptional direction; humbling scenes played out amidst takes lasting several minutes; brilliant acting and that down and dirty feel the film has as it looks at life amongst people you feel could be real. But all these things do count in its favour. Leigh's study is what happens beneath the surface of a mere snapshot of life and amongst the good job, big house and relatively large family Maurice has lies certain doubts and regrets that are not evidently there on the surface, echoing the arguing couple and their photograph situation.

The film pays sly nod to what it isn't when, in a rare scene involving people actually looking quite cheery, two people stumble out of a cinema and past a film poster for the 1995 film Judge Dredd, laughing in a carefree and happy manner. At that point nothing else matters to them, for they have found one-another and are enjoying their time. For the audience, as we witness this new found bond, we notice the poster for the mainstream Hollywood affair mentioned and filter whatever feelings or sniffy reactions we may have to something like Judge Dredd through our actual emotions as we witness these two people merrily trot down the street. It's a moment of realisation for us as the two characters enjoy their time together, a moment when we realise what we are seeing really is cinema being as intriguing and humbling as it might possibly be, the complete opposite to Stallone's 1995 star vehicle.

Without ever turning too much into a melodramatic television episode, Leigh pushes his characters onward and finishes with a dramatic set piece. Only, it isn't explosive literally as much as it is emotionally. The fact Hortense has found who she's looking for and nobody else at a BBQ birthday function knows about it is such a sly and drawn out ingredient that carries such a degree of suspense through character driven situations. There is a degree of juxtaposition in regard to the pleasure of the birthday party and the burning secret two people withhold. The film has mostly everything that makes a solid film. The development of certain characters is wonderful as is the direction and use of the long take. Secrets & Lies is a rather impressive piece of work.

Unlike American films attempting to tackle such a tangle of relationships, the British do so in a manner which spares the viewer not one inch for syrupy happy endings or sterilised overpasses where difficult subjects are concerned. The film at times is relentless, but one can only feel a mounting sense of joy as the story unfolds, and unfolds, and keeps unfolding ! Like ''The Full Monty'', this is a film that HAD to be made in Britain although the basic story-line could certainly have taken on the resemblance of something out of the Northeastern US (for example). Brenda Blethyn (Best Actress nomination) and Marianne Jean-Baptiste (Best Supporting Actress nomination) should have taken home statues on Oscar night. This was the best picture of 1996, make no mistake about it ! Top rating (5 stars of 5).

A young black woman seeks out her family history and gets drawn into the suppressed, emotionally complex lives of her birth mother and her extended family. In terms of plot, that's about it. Nothing really 'exciting' happens. It's just a story about people and how they relate to each other. But that doesn't mean it isn't dramatic, or absorbing. It is.

Mike Leigh's record in character-based films is rightly legendary. He knows exactly how to do this. But it only works if the performances are excellent. And on the whole, these are.

To start with the main drawback, Phyllis Logan's accent grates with me. Her character is supposed to be Scottish, but the accent doesn't work at all. And I'm afraid, for me, this detracts a little from her character, which is probably one of the weakest in the film anyway.

But it is more than made up for by the superb performances of Timothy Spall, Brenda Blethyn and Marianne Jean-Baptiste. It's not often when watching a film that you develop a strong opinion of a character at the beginning which is completely changed by the end. Blethyn does that here: her character was intensely annoying to me at first (almost made me switch off in fact). But by the end I felt quite differently. And that's down to Blethyn and Leigh.

There's a couple of scene-stealing minor cameos to look out for too. One is by Lesley Manville, playing the social worker who starts Hortense (Jean-Baptiste) on her search for her real mother. The other is by Ron Cook, as the failed emigrant who once sold Maurice (Spall) his photography business. Both are only on screen for a few minutes, but leave a lasting impression and are the kind of strikingly 'real' human characters that these kind of films are all about.

At 2hrs 40 minutes 'Secrets and Lies' is a bit of a marathon. But it needs to be - and it repays your patience. If you stay till the end you will have seen a very good film.

After hearing so many very positive comments about this movie I finally succumbed and rented it. I had seen it on the shelves before but avoided it because the theme seemed so bleak. I should have trusted my instincts! Although the movie was well acted and the subject intriguing, the well-crafted aspects did not overcome the labourious pace, disjointed delivery, and sheer unpleasantness of almost all the main female characters. This movie also leaves many questions unanswered and some aspects of the plot hanging; what was the purpose of the return of the man who Maurice had bought the studio from? why was there almost no exploration of the effects of the inter-racial aspect? why did it take over 2 hours to tell what was basically a simple tale? Surrounded by the crushingly depressing scenes of working class British life, this LONG movie takes work to sit through and the glimpses of intelligent film-making are too brief to save it.

Painful to watch, and not entirely for empathy with the struggles of the characters. Two of the main characters, Cynthia the mother and Monica the acknowledged daughter, spend the great bulk of the film pathetically mewling and bitterly bitching respectively. Their characters are so firmly established that their redemption into tolerable personalities after a quick family catharsis is unbelievable. It wasn't worth the wait. I wish a worthy pitch for honesty among families was less of a headache to view.

This is a lovely, small film with beautiful performances by Brenda Blethyn and Marianne Jean-Baptiste. It is filled with comical moments that balance out some of the heavier parts of the film. My heart went out to the two lead characters as they struggled to make sense of the mutual bond unearthed by Ms. Jean-Baptiste's character. At once confused, hurt, shocked and afraid, Ms. Blethyn is completely convincing in her role. I was moved by her decision to enter into a relationship with this woman whom she had never before met. Perhaps the fact that Ms. Blethyn and Ms. Jean-Baptiste had never been introduced prior to the scene in which their two characters meet added to the realism of that moment. And Ms. Jean-Baptiste's portrayal of a woman who is surprised by her discovery and not a little disappointed was dead-on, as is her dogged determination to get what she came after.

If you are searching for a movie brimming with action, special effects, and/or blockbuster stars you need to pass this over. But if you are in the mood for a film that offers winning performances and an entertaining storyline that grows out of human interaction, this is the one you're looking for! "Secrets & Lies" is a gem of a movie!

Hortense sets out to track down her biological mother, she discovers factory worker Cynthia, and also learns that she has a half sister, Roxanne.

One of the best films ever made for my money, it really is Mike Leigh's masterpiece. There isn't a single wasted scene in this film, every single moment has relevance, every single moment matters.

How can a film be so funny and so heart breaking in equal measures, it's a tremendous character study, it captures all essence of human nature. Several moments will never leave me, that moment where Maurice deals with Emma Amos's scar victim, and that incredible family blow up, incredible.

I get asked who my favourite actress is, and when I say Brenda Blethyn, people assume it's for Vera, and whilst I love Vera, it's because of Cynthia, don't get me wrong, the cast are phenomenal, but Blethyn is exquisite.

No wonder this film won so many awards, in reality it deserved many more. It's a film that has stood the test of time, and one that gets better with every viewing.

An exquisite, human film, with lots of stories to tell.

10/10.

This is a drama for adults only. The subject matter would never interest a child. It is an extremely well-done movie, and the performances were among the best of the year. Timothy Spall and the rest of the cast are unforgettable. Mike Leigh is some kind of genius.

This is an a really excellent film, the acting from the main players is superb, especially Spall and Blethyn. The film has many layers of emotion that will ring bells with your own life, albeit in a diluted form....hopefully. Don't watch this film on a hot sunny day after having just won the lottery but maybe when you are feeling a little reflective and allow yourself to be absorbed by the characters. Even the most morale of us live a dishonest life in order to be able to cope, but the time arrives when we have to own up to who and what we are and reveal our vulnerable side to the ones that we really love. Its what ultimately makes us human. Great film.

Very well done and a motion picture worth seeing. Perhaps the plot takes a little time to develop, but the end is full of surprises. There is humor, pathos, and the usual jump to conclusions on the part of the characters depicted. Nevertheless, it is a great motion picture.

For a while there, we'd sort of considered Mike Leigh's movies slow, but "Secrets & Lies" showed him to be a good director. It portrays a family in England who all of a sudden start finding out various things about each other, some of which shock them royally! I'd never heard of Brenda Blethyn before this movie came out, but she showed herself to be a great actress here, and did again in "Saving Grace".

I guess that the point is that we've all got a few skeletons in our closet. This movie takes a great look at such issues. Also starring Timothy Spall, Phyllis Logan, Claire Rushbrook and Marianne Jean-Baptiste (whom you may remember from "The Cell").

We tend to assume that behind the front doors of the residences on streets, roads, avenues and cul de sacs we live on, normal is going on, we may even refer to normal families and normal people - but we do this to deceive ourselves that everything is fine when the evidence suggest quite the opposite.

Behind the doors of the homes and establishments in this masterfully performed, scripted and directed piece of filmmaking are characters whose expectations of life have been shattered through misfortune and disappointment and, while these scenarios and experiences may be a world away from your own, I would suggest the emotions and alienation felt are far more common than any of us would like to admit - there is no normal.

Secrets And Lies is the very dictionary definition of "gritty British drama" - it concerns the hidden fears, guilts, and secrets of seemingly ordinary people, and features a lot of crying and some fantastic acting.

When Secrets And Lies begins we know nothing about the characters. Their pasts are slowly revealed through conversations and meetings between characters, as well as the smaller happenings and chance words, leading up to the obligatory revelation packed finale. It is these "little things" that Secrets And Lies does best - the scenes with Maurice taking photographs of a wide range of different people are far more interesting than the main story, as they give away the bare minimum of clues as to the life of these people. A couple have a minor argument, a woman talks about her accident, and then they're gone. You know nothing more about them, and it's left up to your imagination as to what happens to them next.

Actually, the film itself was largely left up to the imaginations of the lead actors. They were all told the bare minimum about their characters as well, and were left to improvise much of the dialogue. Upon knowing this, the already impressive acting seems almost superhuman (especially the first meeting between Hortense and Cynthia). However, leaving the dialogue up to actors instead of scriptwriters may explain why the end of the film becomes rather predictable, if still quite powerful.

Overall, I found Secrets And Lies to be an above average drama about, well, secrets and lies really, but nothing particularly special. However, if your own life has been affected by any of the issues involved - mainly adoption, infertility, teenage pregnancy - I have no doubt that this would be a far more moving film than it was to me.

I thought this film was a gritty and realistic portrayal of English working class life. This is how people are in England and Mike Leigh's characterisation is superb. He captures the trauma of secrets and lies within family life perfectly. I only recently saw this movie and can't believe I left it so long. Something different if you are sick and tired of formulaic Hollywood sentimentality.