Secrets & Lies (1996)

Nominated for Best Picture of 1995, Secrets & Lies is a film about the ways in which we try to keep from revealing our true selves to others. It involves the unmaking of a family of working class people in England, thanks to the titular "secrets and lies" they all have been keeping from each other. The main one around which much of the plot is built involves a successful young black woman who searches for her birth mother after the death of her adoptive mother. However, the birth mother, a very low class white woman, has led a wild past and has another daughter, this one also white, to whom she has never revealed that another baby was given up for adoption years earlier and with whom she has a very fragile relationship.

Such material requires a delicate touch from all of the actors involved. And no one is finer at achieving the right tone consistently than Brenda Blethyn as Cynthia Purley, the factory worker who has had two illegitimate children and a sad life overall. She's remarkable. You want to dislike her for being what the British would call "common," as her social-climbing sister-in-law obviously does, or even for some of the many stupid mistakes that she has made in her life, but Blethyn manages to evoke so much sympathy from the audience. She makes Cynthia's life seem so pathetic that you recognize just how trapped she has been. It's an astonishing job of acting.

As Hortense, the woman searching for her mother, Marianne Jean-Baptiste is a marvel of quiet dignity. She's done so much to make her life a success, yet she wants to know her past regardless of the consequences such knowledge might bring. How she manages to maintain her composure during some of the more volatile moments in the story is a testament to her strength. As her uncle Maurice, Timothy Spall has one of the most difficult roles in the film. He has to be the one listening to everyone's complaints. Near the end of the film, when he reveals just how difficult that burden has been for him, it's a moment of clarity for everyone. He seems to be such a reasonable, patient man, someone who has managed to stifle his own pain for the sake of everyone around him.

There are so many scenes in this film that are worth close attention. I hope I never have to attend a birthday party like the one that occurs near the end of the film. That's where so many of the secrets and lies are revealed, and it's a tense and emotionally raw half an hour or so. But my favorite scene has to be the one at almost exactly the halfway point of the movie, when Cynthia and Hortense first meet. Shocked to discover that Hortense is black, Cynthia first tries to deny that she could be Hortense's mother. The moment of realization that she has is just astounding. Both actresses, seated next to each other in a cafe booth, use their facial expressions to display the full range of emotions two such women might feel. In the wrong hands, it could be played just for laughs. While there are funny aspects to this particular conversation, certainly, Blethyn and Jean-Baptiste do not restrict themselves to merely comedy.

This is an intense movie, filled with many uncomfortable yet realistic moments. At times, you wish you could turn away from the action, so painful are the revelations, so powerful are the emotions, but it remains too enticing not to watch. You begin to feel as if you are a direct witness to the action, and you also begin to care about what happens to each of the members of this dysfunctional family. That's no small feat to achieve, given that all of the people are flawed individuals. But perhaps it's their very human qualities that make this such a great film.