Secrets and Lies

I've only seen two of Mike Leigh's films now, and I'm already willing to call him the best British director working today. This film is about exactly what its title implies, the secrets and lies that are about to be exposed and threaten to destroy a family that is already only holding on by a thread. Brenda Blethyn plays a 40-something single mother who seems to have just barely teetered off the edge into a breakdown with devestating intesity. Her character is both tragically and even annoyingly sympathetic. It's a truly fantastic performance. In fact, the performances all around are incredibly intelligent -- the kind which only Mike Leigh has managed to pull from mostly unknowns. The climactic scene in which everything is exposed, forcing the family to confront that which was once hidden has such power and emotional intensity that one can almost sense the ghost of John Cassavetes presiding over the set. Here is another film that I have no trouble calling one of the very finest films of the 90's.