SECRETS AND LIES (75)

Directed by: Mike Leigh

Starring: Brenda Blethyn, Timothy Spall, Marianne Jean-Baptiste

The Pitch: A young black woman, adopted as a child, seeks out her real mother and finds a highly dysfunctional (and white) family.

Theo Sez: The success of NAKED seems to have liberated Leigh, given him the confidence to concentrate entirely on the crux of his work, the minutiae of human behaviour, without the forays into absurdism and wild caricature that he (perhaps) felt constrained to include in his earlier work as a hedge against worthiness and pomposity. The result, unsurprisingly, is a little worthy and a little pompous, coming on as an extended bout of family therapy with a dismayingly explicit moral ("it's always best to tell the truth"). One often misses the way-out humour of LIFE IS SWEET, above all for the allusiveness it imposed on characters - the people here are more explained, with nothing to match the subtle resolutions of the earlier film. Yet in many ways subtlety isn't the point here - it's a film that tackles everything head-on and is proud of it, the aim being truth through artlessness (hence the minimalist style, with most of the key scenes shot in a single take with a near-static camera). The result may or may not be "truth" but it certainly feels like it's been torn from the actors' psyches, with nothing standing between the camera and the characters in all their emotional nakedness. If at times it strays ominously close to Oprah territory it also manages some stunning sequences (often the quieter ones, like the meeting with the shop's previous owner) and commands respect for its integrity if nothing else. Though one certainly wouldn't want to see Leigh go any further down this rather moralistic road (especially at such excessive length), it's clear he hasn't lost his touch: much of the film is powerful and touching enough to rank with his best work.