As an independent journalist, Bob MacKenzie writes articles for a number of print and internet publications. The local and national scope of his articles for the Kingston Net Times, the Kingston Business Journal, and other publications make them of interest to readers not just in Kingston but across North America. This article is reprinted here for your information. All material included in this page is copyright © Bob MacKenzie, 1996. No reproduction for any reason is allowed without prior permission in writing from the author.

The article below was published on the internet in the Kingston Net Times.

Secrets and Lies

a film by Mike Leigh

141 minutes

"Secrets and lies! We're always in pain. Why can't we share our pain?"

When I was a child, we enjoyed commercial chocolate covered treats with wonderful fillings of cherry and fondant sauce or creamy mint. The chocolate outside was usually bland and too waxy, but the inside sweetness was tempered with just enough bitter to make it a delicious ecstasy. Mike Leigh's 1996 movie, Secrets and Lies, is like that.

It is disheartening to see a British director of the calibre of Mike Leigh attach a Hollywood ending as the final scene in what is otherwise quite a fine story. Without giving away that final scene, this is an excellent telling of a powerful personal story which will have a certain proportion of the audience in tears and which, in real life, would not enjoy the simplistic ending represented by that final scene.

While perhaps necessary to the story, the opening scenes are, frankly, often boring. They are reminiscent of the work of John Osborne and the rest of the so-called "angry young men" during the fifties and the resulting realist movement. Compared to some of these opening scenes, Osborne's Look Back in Anger appears positively exciting. The most interesting opening scenes -- and perhaps only to me as the son of a photographer -- are those of a photographer plying his rather mundane trade. All that made these scenes of interest at all was their level of realism.

It is only once the rather disparate group of characters begin to interact with one another that the story really begins to be interesting. The tension between characters, whether on the telephone or during personal visits, is powerful and sustained and extremely true to life, so that any adult past their mid-teens can relate to the powerful family tensions represented in this film.

This is the centre of the film, this powerful interpersonal tension between the members of the family represented here and the manner in which they individually attempt either to resolve or to avoid the truth.

In a recent interview with the British online publication, Webcast, Mike Leigh had described the genesis of the idea for this film: "Well, in 1976, England passed a law that gave adopted kids the right to discover who their biological parents were. I became intimately aware of situation -- which I obviously cannot discuss here for reasons of privacy -- and that's the original idea for the story. But yes, it also has metaphorical implications -- it's about the need to discover who we are or what we are -- the who and what not necessarily being the same thing, of course. It's also a metaphor for another kind of search into one's own being -- and becoming."

This is in some ways a very old-fashioned film, a film which uses symbols and images to build unconscious conclusions in the minds of its viewers. The photographs throughout are images which may be true or false but are, ultimately, just images rather than reality. And a central and even pivotal character, Maurice, played by Timothy Spall, is a photographer who repeatedly says to his clients, you may smile or not as you wish; whichever image you want. His clients do not always choose to smile.

Neither does his niece, Roxanne, who has apparently never smiled since Maurice had taken her photograph at approximately age ten, nor many other members of his family,including his wife Monica, played in a restrained fashion by Phyllis Logan, most famous in Canada for her role as Lady Jane in the Lovejoy television series, all of whom seem to have secrets to hide from one another.

While all the actors are excellent in this modern fairy tale, the shining lights as characters are Hortense, played by London stage actress Marianne Jean-Baptiste, and Cynthia, played by Brenda Blethyn, best known to Americans and Canadians for her role in A River Runs Through It. Indeed, while I do not wonder that Blethyn was the recipient of the best actress award at last year's Cannes festival, Jean-Baptiste could have as easily been the recipient and indeed much of Blethyn's excellent performance was as a result of the interplay between the two.

Secrets and Lies was also the winner of the covetted Palme d'Or award at last year's Canne's Festival.

According to Director Mike Leigh, "Secrets and Lies is about roots and identity, the ever-changing images we all have of ourselves and each other, and our compulsive need to reaffirm constantly who and what we are, and where we come from. It is also a tale of love and caring and deep longings and of the awesome relentlessness of the passage of time."

At two hours and 21 minutes, this film is probably much longer than it should be. While I do strongly recommend seeing this powerful and well-done drama, I also recommend walking in a half-hour late and leaving just after the birthday party ends. But then, I was the sort of kid who took off the chocolate and just ate that wonderful bittersweet filling.