#marianne jeane-baptiste in secret and lies

[ourlittlesister2015]

Well. At least we'll always have Lee Kang-sheng's eyes

[cinematicjourney]

Secrets & Lies (1996) | dir. Mike Leigh

[haveyouseenthismovie-poll]

[tunasaladonwhite]

[pacingmusings]

Seen (again) in 2024:

Secrets & Lies (Mike Leigh), 1996

[peridotlionheart]

The last scene is an acting masterclass.

- But sweetheart, I can’t be your mother !

- Why not ?

- Well…look at me!

Secrets and Lies (1996) with Marianne Jean-Baptiste (left) and Brenda Blethyn

[cosmicanger]

marianne jean-baptiste in secrets & lies (1996)

dir. mike leigh

[firespirited]

I watched Secrets & Lies 1996 based on a picture of two brilliant actresses Marianne Jean-Baptiste and Brenda Blethyn sat side by side - I've mostly seen them shine in secondary or restrained roles - and the recc for "selling a scene that would be overacting in any other hands" (paraphrased) so went in having no clue what it was about.

Good thing because if I'd seen it was a Mike Leigh it would have put me off. The one bit of film I've seen from him was trashy misogyny not worth seeing to the end.

This was good. It's slow at over 2h20 but a nice character driven mystery so don't spoil yourself if you want to watch it.

It felt sort of like a play at times. At others it felt like I was intruding. Other times it felt like a made for tv movie.

It definitely felt *different* and I saw myself in both women which doesn't happen often there's usually a layer of disbelief (lifestyle way above mine, focus on romance, views on life that just don't align with mine). These are two fundamentally kind and giving women who haven't made space for themselves, especially Cynthia who is suffocating and then they begin to change that.

Marianne Jean-Baptiste is luminous, she seems quieter and calmer than the rest but she's boiling with questions or bubbling with excitement with the tiniest hints in her face.

Brenda Blethyn's character was already 3 seconds away from a nervous breakdown when we meet her and mellows a little before breaking again. It makes you want to look away, makes you cringe, sure made me feel a way about times I've bottled everything up and then it all came out like a firehose. Funny how we're taught to cringe at the pressure cooker woman and the ugly cry.

Tl;dr : a different type of film where the actors were given a lot of space to improvise. You'll want the subtitles. Great acting and lovely ending.

[biggoldbelt]

Unveiling Hard Truths with Mike Leigh and Stars of 'Secrets & Lies'

Mike Leigh, Marianne Jean-Baptiste & Michele Austin Interview by Big Gold Belt Media as apart of the AAFCA @theaafcachannel2297 Roundtable –Synopsis:Pansy, angry and depressed, lashes out at family and strangers. Her constant criticism isolates her, except from her cheerful sister Chantal, who remains sympathetic despite their differences. Tags#HardTruths Thank you for watching our videos here at…

[greensparty]

Preview: 2024 IFFBoston Fall Focus

Anyone who knows me or reads this blog knows my favorite film festival in Boston, in Massachusetts and possibly the world is Independent Film Festival Boston (read my coverage here).  I have a special place for this festival: in 2014 my documentary Life on the V: The Story of V66 had its World Premiere at the festival, and in 2015 I was on the Documentary Jury. IFFBoston’s mini-festival Fall Focus, where they showcase some of the Fall festival darlings will be taking place at the Brattle Theatre (Cambridge, MA) and Somerville Theatre (Somerville, MA) from Thurs. October 31 to Mon. November 4!

2024 Logo

Here is my preview of the films they have at this year's mini-fest:

Thurs. October 31:

From Marielle Heller (Can You Ever Forgive Me? and A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood) is Nightbitch starring the always-reliable Amy Adams as a artist-turned-stay-at-home mother who begins a primal transformation into a dog. Sounds so crazy it just might work! Also playing is the short film It's Not Me (French with English subtitles), which pays tribute to Jean-Luc Godard.

Fri. November 1:

The New England-set Eephus is about a small-town Sunday baseball league game. Director Carson Lund will be in attendance.

New wave synth legends Devo are finally getting the music documentary treatment with Devo from acclaimed documentarian Chris Smith (American Movie and Sr. to name a few).

Sat. November 2:

From Iranian filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof, it's the Cannes award winning The Seed of the Sacred Fig (Farsi with English subtitles). All We Imagine As Light (Malayalam and Hindi w/English subtitles) is a personal journey drama. On Becoming a Guinea Fowl (English and Bemba w/English subtitles) is a comedy drama from the director of I Am Not a Witch. Bird is a new one from IFFBoston album Andrea Arnold.

Sun. November 3:

The animated feature Flow is Latvia's official submission to the 2025 Academy Award's Best International Film category. There is no dialogue either! Nickel Boys is from IFFBoston alum RaMell Ross. Gaucho Gaucho (Spanish w/English subtitles) is a celebration of a community of Argentine cowboys and cowgirls, known as Gauchos. Oscar nominee Mike Leigh reunites with his Secrets & Lies star Marianne Jean-Baptiste in Hard Truths. I was a fan of actor Jesse Eisenberg's directorial debut When You Finish Saving the World and now he's following it up A Real Pain, a dramedy starring himself and Kieran Culkin as cousins traveling through Poland to honor their grandmother. The buzz on this one is very high!

Mon. November 4:

IFFBoston alum Brady Corbet is back with The Brutalist (English, Hungarian, Yiddish, Hebrew, and Italian w/English subtitles) starring Adrian Brody as a Jewish Hungarian architect who leaves Europe during World War II for America to rebuild his life. This one is being shown in 70mm!

For tickets and info go to IFFBoston Fall Focus

[ourlittlesister2015]

I’m trying to come up with a list of movies about grief mostly for myself. I’m using grief as a general feeling of loss, maybe at the loss due to death or just grief of what no longer is. I can come up with really charming and beautiful takes on it. I think no home movie applies since it’s more of a movie of Chantal’s grief at the loss of her own mother. Ode to nothing works in the sense of the life you never got to have, gaining temporary hope and then losing that too.

Then there are movies like the annihilation of fish and huesera which are polar opposites. One is about elderly people who don’t fit into what’s considered normal, one constantly fights a demon and the other thinks they’re married to Puccini and when the two meet it’s the grief of the life people expect you to have, even the ones that aren’t really “normal”. And then huesera, a horror movie about a life crumbling apart. In this case, it’s a life you never really wanted, it’s conjured up from what you’re supposed to want. So you follow the steps and end up miserable anyways, it’s the destruction and grief that comes with the inability to love a child in this perfect life that could never be yours. 

To a lesser extent, it makes me want to consider Post mortem too. Pablo Larraín’s doing a lot in that movie but there’s a sensibility that’s grief for Allende’s death and for what could have been with that government. Now it’s grief as when things went wrong, how this version of the world all of sudden is destroyed through guns and violence. And if we’re back at the moment things go wrong then we’re back to secrets and lies, aren’t we?

The moment of trauma that changes everything and that you’re so successful at repressing that when someone comes knocking at your door you can’t even tell what’s real or false. You’ve believed and lived a life for so long, thinking no good could come out of it and something beautiful happens. I still have my issues with the movie, particularly the ending but the relationship with Hortense who just lost her mother, and how she finds love in this unlikely friendship with her birth mother remains stellar work. Not just because the writing is impeccable but because Marianne Jean-Baptiste and Brenda Blethyn give flawless performances that are some of the best of all time (that part’s not up for debate).

It’s an obvious choice but I don’t enjoy or connect as much to stories that have grief as destruction or violence. I usually enjoy those but it’s the introspective nature of it that wrecks me and builds me from the ground up at the same time. If it was all just destruction then I don’t have a lot of hope for myself.

I need these movies. I need tropical malady.The line “every drop of blood sings our song” hits so deeply because it’s about giving away your memories to lovers past. It’s the transformation of death, loss, and becoming another (as the tiger) and letting yourself be consumed. By offering memory, love, happiness, and sadness, your whole self is offered to what used to be your lover, and by that, you turn death into something else, something beautiful. Finally, it all comes back to angels in america, turning loss and devastation into a claim for more life

[cinematicjourney]

Secrets & Lies (1996) | dir. Mike Leigh

[recentlyheardcom]

Marianne Jean-Baptiste on Hard Truths her Reunion with Mike Leigh

It’s been 28 years since Marianne Jean-Baptiste burst onto the international film scene in Mike Leigh‘s Secrets and Lies. The British actress was barely out of drama school when she got cast in the 1996 comedic drama playing Hortense, a Black middle-class professional who was adopted as a baby and, after the death of her parents, decides to track down her birth mother. Hortense discovers…

[lboogie1906]

Marianne Raigipcien Jean-Baptiste (born April 26, 1967) is an English actress. She is known for her role in Secrets & Lies, for which she received acclaim and earned nominations for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress and the Golden Globe and BAFTA Award in the same category. She is known for her role as Vivian Johnson on Without a Trace (2002-09) and has since starred in television shows such as Blindspot (2015–16) and Homecoming (2018).

She was born in London to a mother from Antigua and a father from Saint Lucia, growing up in Peckham. She was classically trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London and performed at the Royal National Theatre. She was nominated for an Ian Charleson Award for her performance in Measure For Measure with the theatre company Cheek by Jowl.

She became the first Black British actress to be nominated for an Academy Award and the second Black Briton to be nominated, succeeding. She collaborated onstage in It’s a Great Big Shame.

She recorded an album of blues songs and composed the musical score for Career Girls. She performed in Paris in The Suit (Le Costume). She was acclaimed for her role as Doreen Lawrence in The Murder of Stephen Lawrence.

Jean-Baptiste relocated to the US with her husband and two daughters. She has appeared in such films as Takers, Secrets in the Walls, and Harry’s Law. She played Detroit police chief Karen Dean in RoboCop.

She was praised for her stage performance in the 2013 National Theatre production of The Amen Corner.

She attended the Women’s Image Network Awards and on Bassett’s behalf picked up an award, reading Bassett’s poetic acceptance speech for her winning role in Betty & Coretta. #africanhistory365 #africanexcellence

[movienation]

Movie Preview: Aaron and Bella, Brawls and Drawls -- "Rumble Through the Dark"

Aaron Eckhart makes his “boxing picture,” playing a back-alley fighter who has a debt to Big Mama (“Secrets & Lies” star Marianne Jean-Baptiste, looking and sounding fierce). Bella Thorne is the Southern fried tattoo billboard who seems to believe in him. Looks brutal and sounds Southern. Nov. 10.