Nominated for 5 Academy Awards and the recipient of 3 BAFTAs as well as Cannes’ prestigious Palme D’Or in 1996, Mike Leigh’s Secrets & Lies is a wonderful tragicomic tale of a group of people trying to manage the difficulties that life has presented to them.

Cynthia (Brenda Blethyn) who lives in a council house with her daughter Roxanne (Claire Rushbrook) seems to have reached the end of the line. Her daughter resents her, her brother Maurice(played wonderfully by Timothy Spall), a fairly successful portrait photographer, has moved to the suburbs and hasn’t called in almost two years, and her job at the factory only seems to be good enough to pay the rent. Cynthia’s efforts to get closer to her daughter, fueled by an overbearing and miscalculated desire to love, only result in Roxanne’s growing restlessness towards her mother and Cynthia’s own deepening unhappiness.

It is the call of Hortense (Marianne Jean-Baptiste), a black optometrist, that offers Cynthia the help she needed to put her life back together. Prompted by the death of her adoptive mother, Hortense had set out to discover her real mother who had abandoned her at birth. As it turns out, Hortense and Cynthia find in one another an opportunity to fill the void that was present in their lives, each one the willing recipient of a love they both so desperately wanted to give. The last scene in the film, in which all protagonists get together for a barbecue in Maurice’s suburban home, provides the chance for the family to exorcise its demons and to expel all secrets and lies.

As it is often the case in Mike Leigh’s films, the performances are powerful and commanding. Brenda Blethyn, who won a BAFTA for her role as Cynthia, delivers an emotional and relentless picture of a woman on the verge of losing it all but who finds the necessary courage to embrace the chance she is given at making a better life for herself. And, as is usual for him, Timothy Spall provides us with a remarkable and understated, almost resigned, performance that is contrasted by the inner strength of the character that becomes apparent at the end of the film.

Leigh, through his well-known technique of character and script building through tightly held workshops with the actors prior to shooting, resulting in a fair amount of improvisation, is able to draw from the deepest and most remote places that his actors can reach. His direction leads but also waits and receives.

The result is an emotional look at the struggles faced by ordinary human beings. Connotations of class differences and social issues create an underlying layer upon which to build realistic stories about realistic people. The tension that builds up throughout the film and the frustration that may be felt upon watching these character’s weaknesses being exposed and probed, is more than redeemed by the courage showed and the strength that the protagonists find a way to gather.

This is one of Mike Leigh’s most optimistic and hopeful works. It retains the emotional clarity and rawness of some of his previous films but also offers a moving look at the resilience and bravery of people in the face of adversity. Even if life can be unfair, the message is that it is still up to us to decide what to do about it.