THE SECRETS WE KEEP
***
Director: Yuval Adler
Screenwriters: Yuval Adler and Ryan Covington
Principal cast:
Noomi Rapace
Chris Messina
Joel Kinnaman
Amy Seimetz
Jackson Vincent
Madison Jones
Country: USA
Classification: MA15+
Runtime: 97 mins.
Australian release date: 17 September 2020.
In Yuval Adler’s thriller The Secrets We Keep, we are taken on a twisted journey filled with secrets and lies and it’s only at the film’s surprising denouement that we learn for certain what is truth, what is fiction and what is delusion. Perhaps, more importantly, we also learn about the damage that keeping secrets can cause and are confronted with the thought that, sometimes, it might be better to keep the past buried. Swedish actress Noomi Rapace is the chief protagonist in the film and she’s covering territory that she has roamed in before, playing a woman who may or may not be suffering from a form of depression or PTSD. Anyone who saw Rapace play Lizzie in last year’s Australian production, Angel Of Mine, will recognise something of the same character in Maja.
It’s the very early 1960s and Maja (Rapace) is a Romanian woman, a Holocaust survivor, who’s relocated to small-town middle-America with her US-born husband, Lewis (Chris Messina), who she met in a military hospital in Greece in the immediate aftermath of WWII. He is a doctor, she works in the surgery and they have a young son, Patrick (Jackson Vincent), so they are pretty content with their life, although Maja has had trouble with insomnia and bad dreams over the years. One day her attention is caught by a particularly shrill whistle and, when she turns around, she sees a man (Joel Kinnaman) she recognises from her past - and not just any man. She is convinced he was one of a party of German soldiers responsible for atrocities perpetuated against her, her younger sister and some other women when their group were discovered hiding during the war. Lewis knows very little about Maja’s war-time experiences and is shocked to learn the truth about his wife’s terrible past but it all spills out when she arrives home and confronts him with a shocking fact - she has kidnapped the man, who says his name is Thomas and claims that he is a Swiss citizen who never entered military service, Switzerland being neutral during the war. Saying, “All of a sudden your past is here too”, Lewis knows that they must endeavour to find out the truth but, faced with the man’s fervent denial, he must also consider that his wife is possibly suffering from a dreadful delusion, one that threatens to bring their perfect life crashing down around them.
Rapace delivers a bravura performance; Maja’s doubt, even of herself, encapsulated in her varied facial expressions. Her male co-stars are both excellent, too: fellow Swede, Joel Kinnaman, who Rapace previously worked with in 2015’s Child 44, does a terrific job as Thomas (or is he the Nazi soldier Karl?), a desperate man trying to convince Lewis that Maja is deranged; and Chris Messina excels as Maja’s distressed husband, masterfully displaying Lewis’ absolute confusion when faced with a wife whose past he never knew.
The Secrets We Keep is a tough, convincing thriller that attempts to get to the truth of past deeds that have reduced all involved to a life of lies. Israeli director Adler’s film also explores the choice we have between forgiveness and revenge and if vengeance really is sweet. Despite these weighty themes, a good thriller, says the writer-director, needs to keep the plot moving constantly, carrying the audience along with it. “This story has a minimal setup and then unexpected things propel the action,” he says. “The characters are making life-and-death decisions and the actors need to sustain that intensity throughout. They keep the audience wondering who is telling the truth.”
Screenwriters: Yuval Adler and Ryan Covington
Principal cast:
Noomi Rapace
Chris Messina
Joel Kinnaman
Amy Seimetz
Jackson Vincent
Madison Jones
Country: USA
Classification: MA15+
Runtime: 97 mins.
Australian release date: 17 September 2020.
In Yuval Adler’s thriller The Secrets We Keep, we are taken on a twisted journey filled with secrets and lies and it’s only at the film’s surprising denouement that we learn for certain what is truth, what is fiction and what is delusion. Perhaps, more importantly, we also learn about the damage that keeping secrets can cause and are confronted with the thought that, sometimes, it might be better to keep the past buried. Swedish actress Noomi Rapace is the chief protagonist in the film and she’s covering territory that she has roamed in before, playing a woman who may or may not be suffering from a form of depression or PTSD. Anyone who saw Rapace play Lizzie in last year’s Australian production, Angel Of Mine, will recognise something of the same character in Maja.
It’s the very early 1960s and Maja (Rapace) is a Romanian woman, a Holocaust survivor, who’s relocated to small-town middle-America with her US-born husband, Lewis (Chris Messina), who she met in a military hospital in Greece in the immediate aftermath of WWII. He is a doctor, she works in the surgery and they have a young son, Patrick (Jackson Vincent), so they are pretty content with their life, although Maja has had trouble with insomnia and bad dreams over the years. One day her attention is caught by a particularly shrill whistle and, when she turns around, she sees a man (Joel Kinnaman) she recognises from her past - and not just any man. She is convinced he was one of a party of German soldiers responsible for atrocities perpetuated against her, her younger sister and some other women when their group were discovered hiding during the war. Lewis knows very little about Maja’s war-time experiences and is shocked to learn the truth about his wife’s terrible past but it all spills out when she arrives home and confronts him with a shocking fact - she has kidnapped the man, who says his name is Thomas and claims that he is a Swiss citizen who never entered military service, Switzerland being neutral during the war. Saying, “All of a sudden your past is here too”, Lewis knows that they must endeavour to find out the truth but, faced with the man’s fervent denial, he must also consider that his wife is possibly suffering from a dreadful delusion, one that threatens to bring their perfect life crashing down around them.
Rapace delivers a bravura performance; Maja’s doubt, even of herself, encapsulated in her varied facial expressions. Her male co-stars are both excellent, too: fellow Swede, Joel Kinnaman, who Rapace previously worked with in 2015’s Child 44, does a terrific job as Thomas (or is he the Nazi soldier Karl?), a desperate man trying to convince Lewis that Maja is deranged; and Chris Messina excels as Maja’s distressed husband, masterfully displaying Lewis’ absolute confusion when faced with a wife whose past he never knew.
The Secrets We Keep is a tough, convincing thriller that attempts to get to the truth of past deeds that have reduced all involved to a life of lies. Israeli director Adler’s film also explores the choice we have between forgiveness and revenge and if vengeance really is sweet. Despite these weighty themes, a good thriller, says the writer-director, needs to keep the plot moving constantly, carrying the audience along with it. “This story has a minimal setup and then unexpected things propel the action,” he says. “The characters are making life-and-death decisions and the actors need to sustain that intensity throughout. They keep the audience wondering who is telling the truth.”