Gosh, I love Secrets and Lies (1996).
I’ve had the DVD for weeks now, but it was only last night that my wife and I finally got around to watching it; it was the first time she had ever seen it, but I had described it to her so often that watching it for the first time must have been, for her, a little like watching it the second or third time, for me; e.g., because she knew that a certain character is incapable of having children, a fact that is not revealed until the film’s final scenes, it was easier to pick up on details like the fact that this character is introduced in one of the film’s very first scenes looking out the window as children run by outside the house.
For some time now, I have said that this is my favorite film of the 1990s, and if I were to update my all-time top ten list to include a film from that decade, it would be this one. In all honesty, I have to say I’m not absolutely sure that that is still the case, but I do like Mike Leigh’s films in general (I dubbed Vera Drake my official favorite film of last year), and I still love this film in particular; once again, the final half-hour got me a little misty-eyed.
(One of the things that distracted me this time was the constant references to people being X years old when such-and-such happened X years ago, etc.; I kept wanting to plot a timeline, which is the sort of geekish task that feels more suitable where, say, sci-fi is concerned; it is made even more complicated by the fact that there are now 9 years between the film and today.)
On a personal level, it was interesting to see this film again and its portrayal of a married couple now that I am married myself; and the film, which is partly about adults dealing with the legacies of their deceased parents, was given an unexpected resonance when my mother phoned in the middle of the movie to say that my 90-year-old Oma had just been admitted to hospital due to heart problems. I’m not the sort of person who asks strangers for prayers, but I will say that my wife and I said a few.
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