A Secret - Film Review

The trauma of Nazi-occupied France is revisited in writer/director Claude Miller’s polished and suspenseful melodrama. It opens in the mid- ’80s with psychologist François (Mathieu Amalric) recalling his sickly, anxious childhood in Paris some three decades earlier. His parents Maxime (Patrick Bruel) and Tania (Cécile de France) are athletic types striving to conceal their Jewish identities. Shock lies in store for the 15-year-old François as he learns the tragic circumstances of how mum and dad became a couple. Artfully structured and fluently edited, A Secret has a visual lushness that counterpoints its exploration of loss and guilt. Fine performances.