Secrets & Lies

Leigh’s best-known picture snagged top prizes at Cannes, picked up five Oscar nominations, and left audiences at turns devastated and crying for joy. When her adoptive mother dies, Black optometrist Hortense (Marianne Jean-Baptiste) decides to track down her birth parents. What she finds is the nervy and lonely Cynthia (Brenda Blethyn), who happens to be Caucasian. Light comedy and heavyweight drama merge as Cynthia’s family spills into view, warts and all, and Hortense gets a fantastically awkward introduction. The inner pains may reach boiling point, yet Leigh’s warm-hearted masterwork thrives too on compassion and reconciliation.

Cannes Film Festival: Palme d'Or, Best Actress and Prize of the Ecumenical Jury