Secrets & Lies

YEAR 1949 TO DATE CHALLENGE: 1996 the MOST uncomfortable last 30 minutes of a film a can think of off the top of my head. And the cafe scene is fantastic. Once the secrets start being told, the tension doesn’t lift... but it shifts. I feel like a lot of families in Britain and America and other British colonies go through this process of being vulnerable. And we suck at it!! Brenda Blethyn gives a powerhouse performance here. I had to look up who it was that beat her at the Academy Awards: Frances McDorman in Fargo. Which is a hard to beat performance, but these two were neck in neck.  wish Marriane Jean-Baptiste’s career had picked up more after this; she was absolutely phenomenal. All the actors were. Timothy Spall brought a touch of sensitive masculinity that I’m sure many people wish they had seen in their own father. Wow.