Secrets & Lies (Mike Leigh, 1996)
Kind of stunned to learn this isn't a play adapted to the screen. I suppose the first half-hour or so isn't that talky, especially the Marianne Jean-Baptiste part of the narrative, which doesn't rely on dialogue as much, but everything else does, and of course the whole final sequence very much feels like theater, complete with Timothy Spall having a short monologue with a dramatic title drop.
I had some trouble with the tone of this film. At times, it felt like a parody of a socially realist drama, at other times like a straight-up satire, then like a smug, condescending look at the "hanging on in quiet desperation" type of middle and working class life in the UK, and at others like a deeply sincere and humanistic piece. I think the intention is much closer to the latter, but some of this undoubtedly feels comedic to me, like anything involving Roxanne's boyfriend during the final sequence, or even Spall's assistant Jane... not to mention Jean-Baptiste herself. In the end, the performances (by Spall and Jean-Baptiste especially) are so strong that I did find it affecting, but these perceived tonal shifts did make this a bit of a strange experience of trying to guess exactly what the point of view was here. To come back to my intial point, there's a bit of a clash between the naturalistic style of acting and the very stagey nature of much of what is going on here, especially at the screenplay level. The secret Spall and his wife are keeping especially feels like a screenwriter going "well, we need to give them a secret too for thematic purposes" rather than drama naturally growing out of the whole situation. Same with Spall's old colleague howing up at his work: it's like the film doesn't realize that the key interest here is the Blethyn/Jean-Baptiste story and that, as good as Spall is, and as much as he serves as a very necessary anchor of kindness for us to latch onto, he probably needed to be more of a supporting character here.
But now I'm trying to remake the film, which one shouldn't, and of course those scees also serve to inform the class dynamics at play here. Obviously Jean-Baptiste's social status compared to Roxanne's is this huge element of subtext that permeates every interaction between them and with Blethyn, but Spall's financial success is also key, especially since the final sequence takes place in his pretty fancy house acquired due to years of hard work, which can't be easy for his sister to reckon with, and indeed isn't.
So this is a pretty subtle and affecting film, but it kept me on my toes a bit too much for me to fully embrace it. Still, great acting all-around makes for a journey that ends up emotionally fulfilling.
7/10