Secrets and Lies

Thanks to UTV's venture, we now have a new channel that plays award winning World Cinema. Yesterday I watched Secrets and Lies a British movie in the genre of drama.

The plot: A successful black woman, who after her mother's death tries to trace her birth mother. You can imagine her shock when she finds out that her mother is white.
What happens when she confronts her mother - is what the story is about.
Though for the first half hour or so, you get lost in the long list of characters where you have no clue how they all fit into the bigger picture, once you get all the relationships in the right perspective, you see how beautifully each one fits into the other's life.
A wife, who tries to distance herself from her husband who loves her so much
A daughter, who rebels against her own mother
A brother who stays away from his single sister and her daughter, though he is well aware of their difficult lives
and a daughter in search of her mother

I was really touched by so many scenes in the movie, a few of them being:
~ the legal aide when handing over the adoption papers to the daughter, tries to make her understand that though she wants to meet her mother, she should be prepared to accept the fact that her mother may not want to see her - that there would have been a reason why her mother didn't want her in the first place
~ the phone call when the daughter tells her mother who she really is
~ the first time the mother and daughter meet - where they are standing in front of the station, not knowing who to look out for - that is when you realize the mother doesn't know that her daughter is black and when she is told, is not ready to accept
~ the best scene in the movie is when the daughter meets her mother's family, when the truth is disclosed, the way each person reacts

I loved the mother and her brother's characters. So very realistically portrayed.
Very well made, the movie is a roller-coaster ride of emotions.
"Secrets and Lies... we are all in pain - so why can't we just share with each other our pain?"
so true!