209: Oh, this is the life, ain't it? | Secrets & Lies (1996)

·1 hr 9 min·4 clips

The big emotional release comes from a party scene shot in real time.

209 feels like a high number. Lauren and Charles spend a second laughing at that, then move into Secrets & Lies, Charles's drama pick and Lauren's first run at it. The film gives them plenty to chew on, but the acting is what they keep circling. Charles talks about the 1996 movie as one of those actor's movies where the performances do most of the work, and Lauren sounds a little surprised by how well it gets her. There is some award-season memory too, with Charles placing it near a year when independent films were all over the awards conversation, with Sling Blade, Fargo, and The English Patient nearby. Then, because it is this show, the path wanders. Mike Lee leads to Netflix recognition, Outer Banks, Drew Starkey, and the question of whether a teen treasure show has more going on than Lauren expected. She has not seen it. Charles makes the case that the run-from-the-law treasure plot gives it a weird little engine. Then The Summer I Turned Pretty comes up, less as a must-watch than as a funny bit of cultural radar. Lauren notices the team talk, the Twilight-like energy, and the surprise of women in the thirty-five-to-fifty range getting genuinely invested in something that sounds maybe irritating from far away. Still, the curiosity is real. That is the episode's shape: a warm, serious movie conversation with pop-culture static coming through the speakers. By the end, Secrets & Lies wins them over. They return to the family feeling, the title phrase, and Lauren wanting to know where these people are a year later. It is loose criticism, in the best sense. Two people follow the detours and still land on, yeah, that was really good.

As heard by us

A loose, conversational look at Secrets and Lies that ties the performances and ending to its mid-90s awards context.

Lauren and Charles talk through Secrets and Lies (1996), Mike Leigh's drama, and keep coming back to the performances and the uneasy way people try to understand one another.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

For a 1996 drama conversation that keeps wandering into TV gossip and back.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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