Secrets Lies, trailer

An expert observer of unembellished humanity, writerdirector Mike Leigh reached new levels of expressive power and intricacy with this exploration of the deceptions, small and large, that shape our relationships. When Hortense (Marianne JeanBaptiste), a Black optometrist who was adopted as a child, begins the search for her birth mother, she doesnt expect that it will lead her to Cynthia (Brenda Blethyn, winner of the Cannes Film Festivals best actress award), a lonely white factory worker whose tentative embrace of her longlost daughter sends shock waves through the rest of her already fragile family. Born from a painstaking process of rehearsal and improvisation with a powerhouse ensemble cast, Secrets Lies is a Palme dOrwinning tour de force of sustained tension and catharsis that lays bare the emotional fault lines running beneath everyday lives. directed by Mike Leigh, 1996