Mike Leigh Secrets and Lies 1996

From working from Ken Loach for a while I thought I would explore some of the films of Mike Leigh as he also confronts issues of the working-classes.

I found Secrets and Lies on the Channel 4 app, I thought it was really good and I’m disappointed I hadn’t watched it before. Leigh presents a black adopted girl to have lost both of her parents recently and she goes to look for her birth mother, both are shocked to find out that they are black and white. The character of Hortense I thought was one of the strongest and saddest characters I’ve ever seen on screen, she was unphased and seems to absorb other people’s emotions in order to help them rather than being sympathetic to herself. She has just lost both parents and goes through the struggle of confronting her birth mother who left her when she was a new-born.

The mother, Cynthia, I also feel very sorry for, she is a slightly stereotypical working-class woman but that’s probably why I really like her. Her voice is soft and high-pitched and she constantly refers to people as ‘sweetheart’ or ‘darling’ she is kind and obviously her kindness has gotten her in some bad situations with men. Her other daughter who lives with her at home is just turning 21 and hates the way her mum panders after her.

On the other side of the film we see Cynthia’s brother Maurice who owns a successful photography shop and has seemed to of worked his way up into the middle-classes. His home is beautiful and the first scene we see of his wife is her stencilling some Laura Ashley decals on the wall. Despite this Maurice and Monica are sad, arguably worse or as lonely as Cynthia. In the peak of the film Maurice exclaims that he is sick of the secrets and lies and that everyone is struggling as much as everyone else and they need to stick together.

I think what Mike Leigh portrays is the ignorance no matter what class you’re in, that families hold against one another when a painful event has happened it’s hard to confront and everyone ends up suffering in silence.