Secrets and lies - Mike Leigh

Secrets and Lies was awarded the Palme d'Or for Best Film at the 1996 Cannes Film Festival. It tells the story of Hortense, a young black Londoner who goes in search of his birth mother. Hortense's voyage of discovery leads her to Cynthia - a depressed, unmarried, white woman who has uneasy relationships with both her second daughter and her brother. Hortense's attempt to uncover the hidden, almost forgotten, world of her parents fundamentally affects each of the characters. The film culminates in a lunch party at which the characters reveal the secrets that have blighted their lives, and with this outpouring of truth comes the possibility of renewal.Although set within a recognizable domestic world, Secrets & Lies is epic in its emotional scope, dealing as it does with the need we all have to come to terms with our roots, to assert our identities, and to know who we are.In Secrets & LiesMike Leigh presents our troubled society with an acuteness of observation that is matched by a tenderness and humour that is deeply moving.