SECRETS AND LIES
Palm d’Or for Best Film and Best Actress Cannes Film festival 1996
Cynthia and Maurice, brother and sister, live in the suburbs of London. Cynthia lives with her daughter Roxanne and she doesn’t care for Monica, Maurice’s wife. Maurice decides to invite her to his house so they can all celebrate Roxanne’s twenty-first birthday together. In the meantime Cynthia is contacted by Hortense, a black woman. She c1aims that Cynthia is her mother and that she was given up for adoption soon after her birth. The two women meet, start to see each other on a regular basis, and begin to build an affectionate relationship. Cynthia asks her brother if she can bring a friend to the party, saying that she’s a colleague from work. The big day arrives and they are ali at Maurice and Monica’s house. Under everyone’s apparent cheer there is an undercurrent of tension. At a certain point the inevitable happens: Cynthia reveals that Hortense is her daughter. Soon other revelations follow. Finally after so many lies, the truth is told. Cynthia can go back to her own home with two daughters who are starting to feel like family.