Secrets & Lies (1996)

Directed by

Mike Leigh

Genre

drama film

Country

United Kingdom

Runtime

2h 22m

Rated

R

Rating

7.6 of 10 from 736 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

A Black optometrist, Hortense, seeks out the white working-class woman who gave her up for adoption decades earlier. Their reunion forces Cynthia and her entire family to confront buried secrets and long-suppressed feelings. It is a story about identity, belonging, and the messy bonds of family.

intimateemotionally rawslow-pacedquietly devastatingnaturalistichumanistbittersweetaching

What happens

Secrets & Lies is a 1996 comedy-drama film written and directed by Mike Leigh. Led by an ensemble cast consisting of many Leigh regulars, it focuses on a dysfunctional family whose relations are thrown into further chaos after Cynthia (Brenda Blethyn) is contacted by her adult daughter Hortense (Marianne Jean-Baptiste), who was put up for adoption at birth and wishes to connect with her birth mother. Timothy Spall, Phyllis Logan, and Claire Rushbrook co-star as other members of the family. The film premiered on 10 May 1996 at the Cannes Film Festival, where it won both the Palme d'Or and the Best Actress Award (Blethyn). Upon its release, it received critical acclaim for its performances and emotional weight, and grossed $33–50 million at the box office, against a budget of $4.5 million. At the 69th Academy Awards, Secrets & Lies was nominated in five categories: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, Best Actress (Blethyn), and Best Supporting Actress (Jean-Baptiste). It also received three nominations at the 54th Golden Globe Awards, winning Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama (Blethyn), and seven nominations at the 50th British Academy Film Awards, winning Outstanding British Film, Best Original Screenplay and Best Actress in a Leading Role (Blethyn). (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

Trailer

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