Secrets & Lies

Secrets & Lies is at its strongest in the long, awkward exchanges where people circle the truth instead of announcing it. By our assessment, it is a comedy only in the bleak, human sense: embarrassment, family tension, and sudden honesty all sit in the same room. The film’s strength is how closely it watches ordinary faces and ordinary speech, so each scene feels lived-in rather than staged. The downside is that the discomfort is the point, and that can be hard if someone wants a neat emotional payoff. In practice it moves like a family drama that keeps catching itself in the act of being funny and painful at once. Secrets & Lies stands with the best of serious British character cinema, and it gets there without making its characters tidy or noble.