September 29, 2009
Not my favourite Mike Leigh film, but still a good film! The cast are fantastic!
Brenda Blethyn, Claire Rushbrook, Marianne Jean-Baptiste
Successful black woman traces her birth mother to a lower-class white woman, who denies it; emotions run high as everyone's secrets are exposed.
DVD Release Date: February 1, 2005
Stats: 571 reviews
Flixster Reviews (571)
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August 30, 2009Dysfunctional family drama about people haunted by the past. Reportedly most of the performances were improvised with director Mike Leigh simply providing the actors with an outline of their characters. This makes Brenda Blethyn's stunning performance all the more amazing, howe...( read more)
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February 24, 2009"Secrets & Lies" is about just that - a repressed family torn apart when their years of secrets and lies come crashing down. The trigger for this specific family breakdown is when Hortense (Marianne Jean-Baptiste) seeks out her birth mother after her parents have died. Hortense, ...( read more)
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October 23, 2007Mike Leigh does it again. Great, involving story with real emotion, laughs and intensity. The interplay between Blethyn and Jean-Baptiste is a true highlight and well acted. While the 'race' joke is a bit milked, you'll be having so much fun that you don't care. A heartwarming, i...( read more)
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November 13, 2009MARIANNE JEAN-BAPTISTE
Born in London, went to RADA. Nominated for Best Supporting Actress and a Golden Globe for 'Secrets & Lies' in 1997 -
October 14, 2009Every family has a story. Or dozens tons more. As Cynthia (Brenda Blethyn)'s last line in the movie: "This IS Life". Same/ similar controvertible character, Cynthia in this one was way far more 'adorable' than Poppy in Mike Leigh's latest [Happy-Go-Lucky]. The marvelous Brenda Bl...( read more)
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September 12, 2009A multi-faceted melodrama that proves once again how deeply Mike Leigh understands the craft of acting, and how best to translate it to film. Masterfully woven to give a substantial amount of depth and insight into every character, the film is a showcase for a mosaic of outstandi...( read more)
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August 25, 2009Like the film 'Pulp Fiction', this film is a movie from the mid-1990s which has a modest budget, yet also has an epic running time (though, amazingly, the film isn't overlong) and a fairly complex multi-stranded story. Also like 'Pulp Fiction', the acting is brilliant - the actin...( read more)
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