Secrets and Lies

Secrets and Lies by Leigh, Mike. paperback edition. ISBN: 9780571192915.

Secrets & Lies was awarded the Palme dOr for Best Film at the 1996 Cannes Film Festival. It tells the story of Hortense, a young black Londoner who goes in search of her birth mother. Hortenses voyage of discovery leads her to Cynthia - a depressed, unmarried, white woman who has uneasy relationships with both her second daughter and her brother. Hortenses attempt to uncover the hidden, almost forgotten, world of her parents fundamentally affects each of the characters. The film culminates in a lunch party at which the characters reveal the secrets that have blighted their lives, and with this outpouring of truth comes the possibility of renewal.