Secrets & Lies (film)

Secrets & Lies is a 1996 drama film written and directed by Mike Leigh. Led by an ensemble cast consisting of many Leigh regulars, it stars Marianne Jean-Baptiste as Hortense, a well-educated black middle-class London optometrist, who was adopted as a baby and has chosen to trace her family history – and discovers that her birth mother, Cynthia, played by Brenda Blethyn, is a working-class white woman with a dysfunctional family. Claire Rushbrook co-stars as Cynthia's other daughter Roxanne, while Timothy Spall and Phyllis Logan portray Cynthia's brother and sister-in-law, who have secrets of their own affecting their everyday family life.

Critically acclaimed, the film won the 1996 Cannes Film Festival's Palme d'Or, as well as the Best Actress award for Blethyn. She also won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama for her portrayal. At the 50th British Academy Film Awards (BAFTA), the film received seven nominations, winning both Best British Film and Best Original Screenplay. It also received five Oscar nominations at the 69th Academy Awards ceremony.

Plot
Hortense Cumberbatch, a black optometrist in London, embarks on a journey to trace her family history following the death of her adoptive mother. Despite warnings about potential challenges, she discovers her birth mother is Cynthia Purley, a white woman working in a cardboard box factory in East London. Cynthia lives with her daughter Roxanne, a street sweeper, and tensions arise in their strained relationship. Cynthia's brother Maurice, a successful photographer, lives in the suburbs with his wife Monica, who struggles with depression over her inability to have children.

Cynthia and Monica share a mutual dislike, with Monica viewing Cynthia as self-pitying and hysterical, while Cynthia sees Monica as greedy and snobbish. Maurice, caught in the middle, rarely visits Cynthia and Roxanne. However, they all anticipate celebrating Roxanne's 21st birthday. Maurice's surprise visit to Cynthia prompts an emotional breakdown, and he gives her money for house repairs, expressing a desire to host a barbecue for Roxanne's birthday.

Roxanne, unknown to Cynthia, has a boyfriend named Paul, leading to a heated argument between mother and daughter. Hortense, determined to connect with her birth mother, contacts Cynthia and eventually persuades her to meet. In a face-to-face meeting, Cynthia, unprepared for Hortense's race, denies her identity until confronted with birth documents. Cynthia, overwhelmed with shame, slowly accepts the truth, and the two begin bonding.

As Cynthia and Hortense develop a friendship, Roxanne notices her mother's newfound secrecy. Cynthia, planning to bring Hortense to Roxanne's birthday party, asks Maurice if she can bring a colleague from work. Despite reservations, Hortense agrees to attend and pose as Cynthia's friend. The party becomes tense, with passive-aggressive exchanges between Cynthia, Monica, and other guests.

In a moment of nervousness, Cynthia reveals to Roxanne that Hortense is her daughter, leading to disbelief and anger. Maurice intervenes, convincing Roxanne to listen, while Cynthia and Monica quarrel. Cynthia, berating Monica, reveals Roxanne's father was an American medical student who disappeared after a vacation encounter. Maurice defends Monica, disclosing her infertility, and urges everyone to share their pain rather than harbour resentments.

Monica breaks down, Cynthia comforts her, and the two women reconcile with a hug. Cynthia then shares Roxanne's father's disappearance, and when asked about Hortense's father, she cryptically replies, "Don't break my heart, darling." After the storm calms, Hortense visits Cynthia and Roxanne, expressing her desire for a sister. Roxanne, despite the complexities, welcomes Hortense as her half-sister.

Production
Principal photography began on 29 May 1995 and completed on 12 August 1995.

Development
Leigh was inspired by "people close to [him] who have had adoption-related experiences" to make a film about adoption. Speaking on the subject, he stated: "I wanted for years to make a film which explored this predicament in a fictitious way. I also wanted to make a film about the new generation of young black people who are moving on and getting away from the ghetto stereotypes. And these were jumping off points for a film which turns out to be an exploration of roots and identity."

Many Leigh regulars make cameo appearances in the film, most of whom serve as clients at Maurice's job, including Peter Wight as the father in a family group, Gary McDonald as a boxer, Alison Steadman as a dog owner, Liz Smith as a cat owner, Sheila Kelley as a fertile mother, Phil Davis as a man in a suit, Anthony O'Donnell as an uneasy man, Ruth Sheen as a laughing woman, and musician Mia Soteriou as a fiancée.

Secrets and Lies was partly filmed in Whitehouse Way, Southgate, London. As in all of Leigh's films, the performances were created through months of intensive improvisation: Leigh and the individual actors created the characters at length. The emotional scene in the cafe, in which Cynthia realises that she is indeed Hortense's mother, was filmed in a single uninterrupted take of just over seven minutes. It had been a common misunderstanding that Brenda Blethyn was not told before filming that Hortense was black, making her reaction in the scene more authentic. In a supplement on the Criterion Collection release of the film in March 2021, Leigh, in conversation with Gary Yershon, clarified the method of improvisation and realisation of the scene.

Critical reception
The film was released to critical acclaim; on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes it has an approval rating of 96% based on 45 reviews, with an average rating of 8.7/10; the site's critical consensus is: "Secrets & Lies delves into social issues with delicate aplomb and across-the-board incredible acting, and stands as one of writer-director Mike Leigh's most powerful works". On Metacritic, the film holds a weighted average score of 91 out of 100 based on 27 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim".

Film critic Roger Ebert, writing for the Chicago Sun-Times gave Secrets & Lies four out of four stars. He wrote that "moment after moment, scene after scene, Secrets & Lies unfolds with the fascination of eavesdropping", and added: "[Leigh] 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 called the film "a flowering of his technique. 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". In 2009, he added the film to his Great Movies collection.

Edward Guthmann of the San Francisco Chronicle called the film Leigh's "best and most accessible work to date" and remarked that "everyone's had these family skirmishes and confrontations in their lives, and it's remarkable to see them recorded so accurately and painfully on film. Leigh's marvelous achievement is not only in capturing emotional clarity on film, but also in illustrating the ways in which families start to heal and find a certain bravery in their efforts". Similarly, Kenneth Turan from the Los Angeles Times ranked the film among the best of the 14 features Leigh had written and directed by then. He found that Secrets & Lies was "a piercingly honest, completely accessible piece of work that will go directly to the hearts of audiences who have never heard of him. If film means anything to you, if emotional truth is a quality you care about, this is an event that ought not be missed [...] Unforced, confident and completely involving, with exceptional acting aided by Dick Pope's unobtrusive camera work and John Gregory's telling editing, Secrets & Lies is filmmaking to savor".

The Washington Post author Desson Howe felt that the film incorporated all the "elements of humor, sweetness, cruelty and directness" of Leigh's previous films but dubbed Secrets & Lies "more emotional, tear-inducing and compassionate than its predecessors". He declared it "an extended, multilayered revelation, and you don't get the full, complex picture until the final scene". His colleague, Rita Kempley, called the film "a magnificent melodrama that draws both tears and laughter from the everyday give-and-take of seemingly ordinary souls". She noted that "Blethyn and Jean-Baptiste are a joy to behold in tandem, but Blethyn's endearing portrait is transcendent".

It is listed as the 40th best British film by the BFI.

Box office
The film grossed £1.7 million ($2.8 million) in the United Kingdom. It grossed $8.9 million in France and $13.4 million in the United States and Canada. It grossed $29 million in other international markets  for a worldwide gross of $33-50 million.

Positive pickets
This film was the subject of "positive pickets" by the adult adoptee rights organisation Bastard Nation, which used it as a vehicle to raise awareness of sealed birth records in the United States and Canada.

Director Leigh and actress Blethyn met with Bastard Nation activists at a positive picket in Beverly Hills on 10 March 1997, where they were presented with Bastard Nation T-shirts.