An ensemble cast of Mike Leigh regulars (Timothy Spall, Lesley Manville to name a couple) is led by two extraordinary performances by Marianne Jean-Baptiste and Brenda Blethyn as the young, black optometrist adopted as a child and the lonely white factory worker mother who gave her up. The film won Leigh the Palme d’Or and was released to rapturous praise from critics; as Roger Ebert put it in 1996, ‘moment after moment, scene after scene, Secrets & Lies unfolds with the fascination of eavesdropping’.
Showing as part of The Films of Mike Leigh - screening throughout February