Plot & Summary
Moment after moment, scene after scene, ``Secrets & Lies'' unfolds with the fascination of eavesdropping. We are waiting to see what these people will do next, caught up in the fear and the hope that they will bring the whole fragile network of their lives crashing down in ruin. When they prevail--when common sense and good hearts win over lies and secrets--we feel almost as relieved as if it had happened to ourselves.Mike Leigh's best films work like that. He finds a rhythm of life--not ``real life,'' but real life as fashioned and shaped by all the art and skill his actors can bring to it--and slips into it, so that we are not particularly aware we're watching a film; he has a scene here, set at a backyard barbecue, that shows exactly how family gatherings are sometimes a process of tiptoeing through minefields. One wrong word, and the repressed resentments of decades will blow up in everyone's face.
It would be easy, but wrong, to describe the plot of ``Secrets & Lies'' as being about an adopted black woman in London who seeks out her natural birth mother, discovers the woman is white, and arranges to meet her. That would be wrong because it sidesteps the real subject of the film, which is that the mother and her family have been all but destroyed by secrets and lies. The young black woman is the catalyst to change that situation, yes, but her life was fine before the action starts and will continue on an even keel afterward.
Given the deep waters it dives into, "Secrets & Lies'' is a good deal funnier and more entertaining than we have any right to expect.
Rating
7.9/10 14,164 votesPart 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5
Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9
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