not since attending an ingmar bergman retrospective a few years ago have i seen a film as uncompromising in its portrayal of emotional truth as secrets & lies .
like bergman , director mike leigh is interested in probing his characters’ inner depths through hypernaturally blunt confrontations .
also like bergman , leigh engages in frequent closeups of his characters’ ravished and wracked faces .
and the prominent mournfulness of a cello on the soundtrack recalls bergman’s own use of a bach cello suite in an earlier film .
all that is missing is a discussion of god .
which is not to say that secrets & lies is nothing more than an homage to the swedish master .
in fact , it is quite possible leigh had no such intentions in mind .
nonetheless , what we get is so far removed from the average moviegoing experience — even from the reason we go to the movies in the first place — that it takes some effort to adjust to the film’s rhythms .
once the adjustment is made , however , there are great rewards .
one such is the chance to see life on the screen as it really is .
though leigh may have adopted some of bergman’s stylistic touches , most obviously in an early scene of terse cross-cutting during a married couple’s strained conversation , as well as in that somewhat obtrusive score , the overall feeling of the film is that it eschews any ” style ” at all .
whereas bergman uses artifice as a tool to expose reality , leigh makes the camera a mere observer , almost as in a pbs documentary .
the effect of this is to focus all of your attention on the actors .
it is a tribute to everyone involved that , despite such scrutiny , only infrequently are we aware that anyone * is * acting .
much has been made of brenda blethyn’s performance , and rightly so , but it is only when you remind yourself that you are watching a fiction that you realize how good she is .
there are a few missteps .
for one , except for one scene ( tragicomic , as it happens ) , there is scant humor in the film .
this leads to a certain monotonous tone throughout .
and occasionally ( as with bergman ) the bluntness of the situations can seem forced .
for all that , this longish film manages to keep hold of your attention .
it is unfortunate that the audience for secrets & lies will most likely be limited to an intellectual elite , for there is nothing inherently intellectual about this film .
in fact , it might easily resonate more strongly for millions of working class filmgoers who will likely never see it .
there is even a sweet but significant irony in the film’s unspoken take on race relations , something an american audience at least would do well to observe .
nonetheless , secrets & lies is not for the faint of heart .
though there is nothing physically horrific to make one squeamish , the exploration of common human frailty can be so raw and unsparing that it is tempting to turn from the screen .
needless to say , it is also very depressing at times .
but for many of us , of course , so is life .
and though the film is too honest to tack on a phony happy ending , that same honesty allows it to admit that things can also get better .