100
The New Republic by Stanley Kauffmann
Leigh, the writer, ties up things somewhat neatly and is a touch homiletic. Leigh, the director of cast and camera, is masterly. [Sept. 30, 1996]
Secrets & Lies
Critic Rating
(read reviews)User Rating
- France,
- United Kingdom
- 1996
- · 142m
Director
Mike Leigh
Cast
Timothy Spall,
Brenda Blethyn,
Marianne Jean-Baptiste,
Phyllis Logan,
Claire Rushbrook,
Lee Ross
Genre
Drama
Hortense, a middle class black woman, has been tracking down her birth mother - a white working class woman who, at first, denies being her birth mother. Her already dysfunctional family only get more dysfunctional as their secrets are exposed.
Stream Secrets & Lies
What are critics saying?
100
Chicago Tribune by Michael Wilmington
Leigh is an artist not at all blind to the world's darkness and pain. But the generosity and togetherness he and his company show in Secrets and Lies is something the movies -- and the world -- truly need. [25 October 1996, Friday, p.A]
100
USA Today by Mike Clark
Blethyn is so astonishing that you forget you're seeing a performance.
100
Washington Post by Desson Thomson
Reveals itself detail by searing detail.
100
ReelViews by James Berardinelli
Represents the director at his best -- unsentimental yet powerful, funny and poignant, and, in the end, undeniably satisfying.
100
Los Angeles Times by Kenneth Turan
If film means anything to you, if emotional truth is a quality you care about, this is an event that ought not be missed.
100
Slate by Sarah Kerr
Leigh at his best is a renderer of moments--the wisest and deepest observer, probably, among living directors.
100
Chicago Sun-Times by Roger Ebert
It moves us on a human level, it keeps us guessing during scenes as unpredictable as life, and it shows us how ordinary people have a chance of somehow coping with their problems, which are rather ordinary, too.
100
TV Guide Magazine by Frank Lovece
A radiant, heartbreaking film.
100
San Francisco Chronicle by Edward Guthmann
Leigh goes right to the core of his character's lives and mines the place where we're weakest, most alone and sometimes the cruelest.
90
The New York Times by Janet Maslin
Unfolds beautifully, with a rueful, knowing intelligence that rises above easy assumptions. [27 September 1996, p.C1]
90
The New York Times by Elvis Mitchell
Unfolds beautifully, with a rueful, knowing intelligence that rises above easy assumptions. [27 September 1996, p.C1]
90
Time by Richard Corliss
Rich in humor, pained or frolicking.
90
Newsweek by David Ansen
The results are wondrous, wrenching and crazily funny to behold.
90
Chicago Reader by Jonathan Rosenbaum
The acting is so strong--with Spall a particular standout--that you're carried along as by a tidal wave.
75
Baltimore Sun by Ann Hornaday
Crammed, cheek to jowl, with bleak moments, high hopes, sweetness and naked emotion.
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