Title: Secrets & Lies
Year: 1996
Country: France, UK
Language: English
Genre: Drama
Director: Mike Leigh
Writer: Mike Leigh
Cast:
Timothy Spall
Brenda Blethyn
Marianne Jean-Baptiste
Phyllis Logan
Claire Rushbrook
Elizabeth Berrington
Lesley Manville
Lee Ross
Rating: 8/10

Arguably this is Mike Leigh’s most popular film as it obtained 5 Oscar nominations (BEST ACTRESS, BEST DIRECTOR, BEST PICTURE, BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS and BEST ORIGINAL SCRIPT) and the Golden Palm in Cannes that year. I love Leigh’s work very much and I previously watched VERA DRAKE (2004) and NAKED (1993), both brave and extraordinary. Still waiting to watch his recent pictures ANOTHER YEAR (2010) and HAPPY-GO-LUCKY (2008).

The film itself burrows deep into the process of a successful black orphan looking for her birth mother (who is surprisingly set to be a low-class single white woman), arresting its audience with its slow pace of unraveling the backstory of their skin difference and their family. The warm-hearted tone is rare to behold in a Mike Leigh’s film, and the happy ending ambiguously serves to leave its viewers a feel-good impression after the credits’ rolling up. I must admit that it is a smart move, and expands itself to a wider demography.

Surely Leigh’s poignant portrayal of ordinary citizens is his trump card and renders a platform to allow the excellent cast to showcase their kaleidoscopic capabilities and leave its audience mesmerized. the Oscar-nominated mother-and-daughter pair (Brenda Blethyn and Marianne Jean-Baptiste) is deservingly splendid, especially Brenda, I rank her as my win that year, the strength and suffer of her character is so tangible when she is on screen; also Timothy Spall fully exposes his talent for his chubby but charming role as the younger brother of the mother.

It is a wondrous work to make a film handling with a seemingly overreached story in such a fascinating way and even offer some strong aftertaste for us to ruminate, a bravo job!