SECRETS & LIES
BLU-RAY
in England in the late 1970s, I loathed director Mike Leigh’s BBC TV dramas about what seemed like the drab lives of dull, ordinary people because they lacked the glamour and drive of Hollywood classics., a microcosm of real relationships and feelings that is as moving and massively encompassing as any film I’ve seen. Nominated for five Oscars and winning the Palme d’Or at Cannes and BAFTAs for writer-director Leigh and his superb cast, ’ main plot follows grieving optometrist, Hortense, who, having recently lost the last of her adoptive parents, seeks out her birth mother. Yet the overall story is a much bigger ensemble piece following several equally important strands of private tragedy. Hortense’s hunt leads her to an extended, unhappy family—plus a birthday party with revelations to end all cinema psychodrama parties. In its dealing with profound issues, is weighty and cathartic, but never depressing due to its humor and humanity.
