Secrets & Lies

• Cat.no: VCLD 3607
• Cert: 15
• Running time: 136 minutes
• Sides: 3 (CLV)
• Year: 1996
• Pressing: 1997
• Chapters: 21 (8/9/4)
• Sound: Dolby Surround
• Widescreen: 1.85:1
• Price: £34.99
• Extras : None
  

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  Director:

  Mike Leigh

  (Career Girls, Naked, Life Is Sweet, High Hopes)

Cast:

Tim Spall (Life Is Sweet, Sheltering Sky, “Outside Edge” (TV), “Auf Wiedersehen Pet” (TV))
Brenda Blethyn (A River Runs Through It, Remember Me?, “Outside Edge” (TV))
Phyllis Logan (And a Nightingale Sang, Another Time Another Place, “Lovejoy” (TV))
Claire Rushbrook
Marianne Jean-Baptiste

Alltoo often, the words A British Film imply a parochial, downbeat viewof the world that doesn’t travel beyond UK cultural boundaries andincidentally is shot like a TV movie. Secrets And Lies, while undeniablyA British Film, avoids such pitfalls. It’s a stunning piece of workwhich you can’t credit the Americans making in a million years.

Following her foster mother’s death, black optometrist Hortense(Marianne Jean-Baptiste) sets out from her spacious, sole-occupant Kilburn flatto find her natural mother. Meanwhile, somewhere down the Walworth Road,single white mum Cynthia (Brenda Blethyn) is having run-ins with daughter Roxanne (Claire Rushbrook) who is in turn unaware of herhalf-sibling’s existence. Cynthia’syounger brother is professional photographer Maurice (Tim Spall), whosemarriage to Monica (Phyllis Logan) is currently in crisis behind the facade ofthe newly purchased and decorated house which is to be the venue fortheir housewarming-cum-Roxanne’s-twenty-first-birthday-party. But whenCynthia turns up with “work-mate” Hortense in tow, the family’s edificeis about to crumble along with the secrets and lies on which it has beenbuilt.

Leigh, as usual, knows how to carefully structure a script and then workwith actors to improvise around it, which pays dividends. Sometimes it’svery funny – check out the scene where Maurice comes home and his wife,hoovering behind the front door, gives him a hard time (not, alas, atthe start of a chapter but mid-way through chapter 4). But more often,employing the actors in this way makes the characters they play all themore watchable and believable. There are a couple of lengthy single shottakes which are also highly effective – Cynthia and Hortense sharingtheir first cuppa in a caf (over 7 minutes, found in chapter 13,sensibly sandwiched by relevant material within the chapter) and a justunder five minute one which closes chapter 18 (the family sitting arounda barbecue table – this one could have had a chapter to itself, withmaybe the preceding patio shot thrown in).

The final revelations in chapter 19 run for nearly fifteen minutes, butthat’s fair enough since it’s hard to see how this sequence could legitimatelyhave been broken up further. If the chaptering feels at times a little sparse,what’s there is by and large fine. Except that, as on other VCI discs, thereis no stop at the start of the movie – you have to go through the commercialfor the Guardian beforehand to get to the movie in the middle of 1.Side breaks are sensible though.

The whole thing is properly presented in widescreen and looks all thebetter for it. The transfer of both picture (you really notice thedifferent interiors, which on one level is what the film is all about)and sound (the gorgeous and beautifully understated string-based musicscore) are flawless. Even the sleeve notes on the gatefold interior aregood.

In the end, as the much employed quote runs, this is indeed a great,GREAT film. You’ll be equally impressed with the LD – VCI’s Secrets andLies is also a great, GREAT disc.

Film: 5/5
Picture: 5/5
Sound: 5/5