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Film Review:
Little Secrets
by Jonathan
Walker
Keeping secrets
seems innocent enough-especially if they are truly kept. Who gets
hurt? Little Secrets explores the significance of secrets
that are meant to keep people from really knowing each other.
Emily (Evan
Rachel Wood) found that she has a very useful marketable skill:
she can keep a secret. The kids of the neighborhood rely on her
to help them keep the secrets they don't want their parents to know.
Some of the secrets, though, are too big and they start to gnaw
at her. Philip and David (Michael Angarano and David Gallagher)
move in next door and as she develops friendships with them, she
finds that secrets interfere with friendship, her dreams, and even
her happiness. She must decide whether her secrets are worth the
price they will cost.
David Gallagher, Evan Rachel Wood, and Michael
Angarano
Little Secrets
has the sweetness of a wholesome family film with none of the saccharine
mush that usually compensates for writing. While some of the children's
dialogue is a bit over-written, the screenwriter Jessica Barondes
does a good job of drafting children that are real. They are neither
the stereotypes drawn by people who know nothing of children, nor
adults in kids' skin that Hollywood usually provides as a way of
grabbing an adult audience.
But, Secrets
gives us another surprise: a script that has a theme that is more
fully developed than in a vast majority of the cotton candy coming
out of the big studios in Hollywood. Much of the dialogue, plot,
and character traits support and comment on the theme. Secrets
is a wonderful family-friendly film.
It's also wonderful
for the fact that it is very well directed. Blair Treu at times
keeps the film light-when he shows us the quirky kids of the neighborhood-and
respect for his talented actors-when the emotions of the film take
hold. He shows much more proficiency in working with good child
actors than most directors.
Director Blair Treu
Little Secrets
does not argue about whether there are good or bad secrets. Instead,
in the film keeping secrets becomes a way for the kids of the neighborhood
to hide their mistakes and for Emily to hide who she really is.
They become a way to shield herself from getting close to people.
But more disturbingly, the secrets stand it the way of maintaining
personal integrity. They allow the "secret keeper" to live a lie.
Expunging these
secrets is a way of developing integrity. How can anyone think that
weaknesses and mistakes can be kept as secrets? We act as though
perfection is the norm and mistakes are so rare that one must hide
them to be accepted. We are human, so we have them...just like everyone
else.
Wanting to hide
our mistakes seems natural enough, but Emily is guilty of trying
to hide parts of her personality that are not "negatives"-as her
mother says. Secrets indicates that we cannot truly become
close to people-and become their friends-so long as we refuse be
ourselves with them. Emily's new friend David said, "If you want
to be close to someone, you can't keep secrets from them." It is
no accident that Emily only achieved her dreams because her friends
knew her well.
In the film,
Emily and Philip accidently break a cup from her mother's china
tea set. While the pattern has been discontinued and so irreplaceable,
they do find a set of cheap knock-offs. That china set symbolizes
Emily. When she would try and hide her mistakes, she moves from
being authentic to being a cheap replacement, no longer authentic.
She thought she looked the same, though her friends who returned
from a summer at camp could see something different in her.
Emily (Evan Rachel Wood)
Treu and Barondes
aren't advocating hanging our dirty laundry out for all to see,
or exposing ourselves to the world. They are talking about personal
integrity and the trust one must have in each other in order to
get close to people. Emily's violin teacher (Vivica A. Fox) said
it well, "You can't keep secrets about yourself and lead a true
life."
Like Emily and
the tea cup, we may hold within ourselves "the best kept secret
in town," but that doesn't repair our shattered integrity.
(Little
Secrets opens in Utah at the end of August 2002.)
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