‘Secrets & Lies’ Moves Through Suffering, Healing

In old movies, usually the ones set in Africa or in some South American jungle, the indigenous people typically have a distrust of photographs. Their complaint is that photos steal your soul.

It’s easy to sympathize with this view. Photos, being moments frozen in time, tend to be unforgiving of the changes that passing years bring.

Mike Leigh’s new film, “Secrets & Lies,” is an exploration of that idea. Central to the film’s simple plot is the notion that perception, affected by time, limits human interaction. For, really, how can you communicate with someone when you’re actually speaking to the person they once were?

Simple answer there. You can’t. And so you keep secrets. And so you tell lies.

Cynthia (Brenda Blethyn) is a fortysomething single mother who lives with her 20-year-old daughter Roxanne (Claire Rushbrook) in a rundown section of London. Anxiety-driven, alcoholic, stuck in a menial factory job, Cynthia is virtually living a lie.

Cut off from her angry daughter, estranged from her younger brother, Maurice (Timothy Spall), Cynthia is a simmering mass of unfulfilled emotions.

The crack in her existence begins when a young black woman, Hortense (Marianne Jean-Baptiste), follows up the death of her adoptive parents by searching for her birth mother - whom, it turns out, is Cynthia.

When the two finally meet, Cynthia’s secrets begin to spill: She’d had an illegitimate child while still just a teenager herself, a baby girl whom she’d given up for adoption. But even she didn’t know that the child was black.

Soon everyone knows, and for one hard couple of hours, the secrets of a whole family spill out. Only then, when everyone understands that they are not alone in their suffering, can the healing begin for all.

In terms of plot, “Secrets and Lies” is not complexly constructed. As in most of Leigh’s films (“High Hopes,” “Life Is Sweet” and “Naked”), what happens is far less important than how it happens. The antithesis of a film defined by action, “Secrets & Lies” moves along fitfully, only gradually filling us in on who is tied to whom and for what reason.

The onus, then, falls on Leigh’s actors to flesh out his thematic intentions. As Maurice, Spall plays the epitome of the decent men. A consummate caretaker, Maurice continually submerges his own desires in the face of needy others - Cynthia’s, his wife’s, his assistant’s, even the drunken man from whom he bought his successful photo business.

Cynthia’s inability to connect with life, much less with any other human from that life, clearly relates to the humiliating circumstances she’s suffered at such an early age. The sense of denial that she adopted slowly became the weapon that she used to lash anyone tempted to draw near.

Even Hortense, the adopted daughter of a happy family and a young professional (she’s an optometrist) with a university degree, is marked by Cynthia’s secrets. Not knowing her own history, she’s always faced an aching question mark.

“You can’t miss what you never had,” one of Hortense’s friends tells her. “Can’t you?” she replies.

Developed in a workshop setting, in which the actors improvise dialogue to scenes suggested by Leigh, “Secrets & Lies” feels more like a stage play than a film. But unlike some play-into-movie experiments, that mix of styles never becomes a problem here.

One extended scene, in which Cynthia and Hortense meet over tea, is done in a single take; and besides being flawless, it contains the shattering moment when Cynthia realizes the truth as Hortense has presented it.

Ultimately, the film stands as a powerful exploration of human fortitude and our ability to survive even the worst of experiences. To some, it will play like an extended therapy session. To others, it will prove therapeutic in and of itself.

To others still, it will simple play as a reminder that peace comes through acceptance. And acceptance comes only after the shadow of secrecy is raised for good. For it is only then when people pictured in family photos can allow each other to change - and thereby grow into their aging, and real, selves.

“Secrets and lies!” Maurice cries. “We’re all in pain. Why can’t we share the pain?”

Why, indeed.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Photo

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: “Secrets & Lies” **** Locations: Magic Lantern Cinemas Credits: Written and directed by Mike Leigh, starring Brenda Blethyn, Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Timothy Spall, Phyllis Logan, Claire Rushbrook, Elizabeth Barrington, Lee Ross and Lesley Manville Running time: 2:22 Rating: R