Secrets & Lies (1996) on Netflix
Adopted at birth and raised by another family, Hortense Cumberbatch works as an optometrist in London. After her adoptive mother dies, she traces her birth mother, Cynthia Purley.
- Netflix3.7/5
- IMDb8.0/1050,921 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes96%
Trailer
Plot summary
Hortense Cumberbatch is an optometrist in London. She was adopted as a baby, and after her adoptive mother dies she sets out to trace her family history. Officials warn her of the difficulties such a search may bring. The trail leads to Cynthia Purley, a white woman who works at a cardboard box factory in East London. Cynthia lives with Roxanne, her other daughter, a street sweeper; their relationship is tense. Cynthia's brother Maurice is a photographer in the suburbs, married to Monica. Maurice and Monica plan a barbecue for Roxanne's twenty-first birthday.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Secrets & Lies (1996)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- A common misunderstanding held that Blethyn was not told before filming that Hortense was black, to make her reaction more authentic. On the March 2021 Criterion Collection release, Leigh clarified that she did not know Marianne Jean-Baptiste would play her daughter when they first improvised the scene, but that this took place during pre-production.
- The pivotal cafe scene, in which Cynthia realizes she really is Hortense's mother, was filmed in a single uninterrupted take running just over seven minutes.
- The adult adoptee rights organization Bastard Nation used the film for "positive pickets" to raise awareness of sealed birth records in the United States and Canada. Leigh and Blethyn met its activists at a picket in Beverly Hills on 10 March 1997 and were presented with Bastard Nation T-shirts.
