GamerTab That was an excellent one.

Matialth Good concept, poorly executed.

Konterr Brilliant and touching

Dotbankey A lot of fun.

classicsoncall It's difficult not to be overwhelmed by the emotional upheaval of a character like Cynthia (Brenda Blethyn) throughout the story. There aren't many moments when she's in a rational state of calm, instead she's reacting hysterically to all the dysfunctional family theatrics surrounding her. One has to admit though, learning that she's the white mother of a black daughter can be somewhat unnerving once it's ultimately revealed. The story took a step in the direction of how something like that could be but dropped the ball without clarifying the point. As the viewer we don't know and can only speculate. Whether Cynthia carried on with a black man after (other) daughter Roxanne's (Claire Rushbrook) absent father hit the road, or if she was assaulted and raped, one must come to your own conclusion. The shocking realization in Cynthia's mind is not made aware to the viewer.It might have helped the story if any of the principal players had an appealing look and personality, but then again, when dealing with real life, this is what one often winds up with. I had a tendency to keep my eye on background characters like Jane (Elizabeth Berrington) and Paul (Lee Ross) when things reached critical mass, and they wound up simply there with virtually no visual response. Personally, I would have been mortified and looking for a quick exit. The scene with Stuart (Ron Cook) seems rather odd now in retrospect since it didn't connect with anything else going on, except perhaps to convey class differences in the midst of a story dealing with a potential racial issue. When all was said and done, it appeared that the family dynamic resolved itself rather quickly, which for the sake of the film was necessary but hardly seemed realistic. It's difficult to imagine the trauma induced by suddenly becoming a bi-racial family would have been alleviated in such a short time span, but at least it ended with everyone still breathing. I'd be on the fence on recommending this one because it's not comfortable to watch, and if one is in a mood for entertainment, this will take you in a different direction.

Paul Visseq Good morning,I'm here to tell you about "Secrets and Lies", a movie by Mike Leigh.I must give credits to him because he worked without a script but to me this film is wack.It's about a dull family story with bad actors like the girl who plays Cynthia.She overplays her role, she is crying during the whole movie and her voice is just irritating.There were many attempts to make the audience laugh but it was a failure, humor is too light.Thank Lord I had the mental to stay in the cinema for two hours to watch that and I almost fainted when I remembered that I had paid four euros for that.I gave this movie three stars just because of actor's improvisation, otherwise I would have put only one star, it was very annoying and Timothy Spall acted like he doesn't care when we met him, he was emotionless.

quinimdb The characters of "Secrets and Lies" contain just as much regret as they do, well... secrets and lies. The film revolves around various sides of one family, including one woman that was set up for adoption at birth and separated from her family. I will start to explain why this film is so great with a brief description of each character.Let me start by saying every performance and every character in this film is memorable, specifically the sudden appearances of the beauty agent that had been in a car crash, and the previous owner of one character'study photography business, both two examples of characters that "drew the short end of the stick" and were forced to live with it, but they were miserable because they would dwell on it. But I'll only be going into the main ones. Cynthia Parley is a single mother who has no living parents, but still keeps her father's room with all of his belongings in it. She has had to work all of her life and give and give and give and yet now she has no one, besides Maurice, her brother, who she rarely sees. She looks at herself now and knows that she isn't nearly as attractive as she used to be, and she has wasted the chance she got. Her daughter, Roxanne, hates her, probably because she feels so unwanted by her mother, so she often spends her time with her boyfriend. Roxanne's uncle, Maurice, has to put up with his wife, Monica, who is going through testing to see if she can somehow have a child. They have been keeping this testing a secret for many years. This is slowly bringing these two apart, but Maurice is patient and thoughtful, but also like the many other characters, regretful of many things. Particularly never having given his father the love that he should've while he was alive, since he hated his father for never talking about his mother, but now he understands that he didn't want to talk about her because it was tearing him apart inside. And then there's Hortense Cumberbatch, who Cynthia set up for adoption at birth and barely even remembers. But when Hortense's adopted mother dies, she feels that she needs to reunite with her real mother because maybe she just needs to know that there is someone out there that is still really connected to her. She calls Cynthia, who is in a position at that moment in which her daughter has just rejected her. Cynthia feels mixed emotions, but finally agrees to meet her. They begin to meet more often and get to know each other, and in a way, Hortense is the only person Cynthia is completely honest with for a while. Then Cynthia invites Hortense to a barbecue that Maurice is holding for Roxanne's 21st birthday, but doesn't want to tell her family yet that Hortense is her daughter, so she claims she is just a friend from work.Cynthia's first reaction to her brothers house is awe, and obvious jealousy at how nice it is. However, Monica takes it for granted, as she has her own personal problems. Then they go outside to eat dinner. This scene is shot in several very long takes, in which the dialogue bounces from one character to the next at a fast pace, occasionally in two separate conversations. It is normal small talk, but because of Hortense, Cynthia, and Monica, it feels like there is a ticking time bomb beneath the table as they speak. Maurice is very playful with Roxanne and Roxanne clearly likes Maurice more than her own mother. Cynthia seems like she is trying to show off Hortense while also trying to hide the fact that Hortense is her daughter, which creates some very awkward moments. But when Monica and Maurice hand Roxanne her gift, Cynthia realizes that she doesn't have one, or even worse, Roxanne might not even care if she did. This sets her off, and she finally confesses that Hortense is her daughter. For the rest of the film, the camera work seems to be mostly close ups and shots of single people in the frame, in contrast with the earlier wide, long shots which included everyone in the frame. This obviously infuriates Roxanne, who takes it out on everyone for keeping the secret from her, and storms out of the room. Then Monica insults Cynthia for not treating her child right, to which Cynthia responds yelling at Monica because she regrets giving them money in the past to get Maurice's company started when she got nothing in return. This leads to a back and forth which leads to Cynthia saying "You wanna try bringing up a child on your own?", which of course leads to Monicas secret of infertility being revealed, and Maurice finally letting out the frustration that these secrets and lies had caused that he'd been holding in for the entire film.The film ends on a surprisingly lighter note, but the characters earn it, and it's not sappy and melodramatic but simple and believable. Everyone has regrets, but these regrets shouldn't lead to more secrets and lies from the ones we love, since all we can do now is live with what we have and not telling the truth will only pull you further apart from those who you need to keep close. The characters learn this lesson the hard way, so those who watch the film don't have to.

MisterWhiplash Mike Leigh's my kind of filmmaker. This is a man who just loves people, especially the ones who have a lot of emotional baggage. But what separates the artists from the hacks - from stuff like Secrets & Lies from a soap, and the characters here could easily be that - is taste and talent. Leigh has good taste and he knows how to steer the ship when it comes to getting a group of actors together and getting them to reveal things through the characters. The love for these people comes through in the filmmaking, in the time given for things like a few good shots that lasts for minutes (not to where it becomes obvious, but that there's no *need* for a cut), and the deep range of the human experience: compassion, envy, spite, forgiveness, love, hate (though how much these two last is hard to say), and understanding are among those in the film.It even could've been something close to a sappy/saccharine Guess Who's Coming to Dinner scenario, given that it's essentially about a black woman who discovers her biological mother is white. We never see the father - no need to, it was one of those bad moments in teenage years that isn't easily forgotten, but it's been put into a corner of memory for Brenda Blethyn's Cynthia at this point in her life in this story. But race isn't at all a big issue, and that's one of the first strong things to know about this film - at the same time, the filmmaker is aware of what he's putting out there, and hopes (or maybe knows) the audience will not only buy it, they'll look to what is much deeper: the pain of loss of that mother/daughter connection, but all of that other history each character has. What I mean to say is that race is not unacknowledged here, but it's not the primary focus.What you get in Secrets & Lies is the story of people at work in their relationships and their everyday lives. The people in this film are relatively working class - perhaps doing a little better than not are Hortense, Marianne Jean-Baptiste, is an Optometrist, and Maurice, Timothy Spall, the brother of Cynthia, runs a photography studio - but we see that they have the work that they do and the people they're close to. That's it, and that's what counts for Leigh. But of course the title itself is not to be taken lightly; the structure is kind of built upon it, of what secrets/lies will be revealed through the due course of the film, even those I didn't think really that deeply about. And yet, as a great dramatist, it's right there in front of me, in the subtext of Leigh's scenario and in what the characters say as much as the up-front stuff (Maurice's marriage for example).There's time taken to set up the characters, and I loved that about the film as well. A soap might just dive right into the 'Who is your birth mother' plot-line, or maybe after so much uninteresting time setting up people, to the point of who cares. But we know who they are with just their behavior - Cynthia's fragile form, her daughter's 'Leave me alone mum!' manner, and of course Maurice, who as a photographer has to try to make people happy. Some of those montages, by the way, are simply delightful, full of the kind of empathy that can be seen from a filmmaker in just flashes: even as they're just sketches of people, they feel fully realized, albeit once or twice as jokes. So that when Maurice does this, and then goes home to his wife and the OK-but-tense relationship there, we know where his head may be at. Also interesting is the fact that we aren't shown that Maurice and Cynthia are brothers right away - why are their stories connected, if at all - until he comes over to her house and that itself is a tremendous scene.This is the sort of cinematic experience that had me on the edge of my seat merely by the emotional stakes of those involved. How the family may or may not find out isn't as crucial as how it will affect them, how we might (or just will) be affected by them. Blethyn may be shedding a lot of tears here, but she's playing a damaged, depressed person, and it never comes into question why she acts the way she does, and Leigh, as with his other films (especially the even more uncomfortable-in-a-good-way Naked) never judges. Other characters may do that to others, especially as things rile high to the surface, but he won't. You want to know what happens to these people once the film ends, and Leigh leaves you wanting more, genuinely so, not in any cheap way.