72
Metascore
15 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 88TV Guide MagazineKen FoxTV Guide MagazineKen FoxA gripping mystery and an ever-timely reminder of the terrible power of repression and silence.
- 83The A.V. ClubNoel MurrayThe A.V. ClubNoel MurrayA Secret is suitably tense, sad, and deeply poignant as it moves toward an epilogue exploring the idea that everything rots and decays, no mater how well-maintained.
- 80The New York TimesA.O. ScottThe New York TimesA.O. ScottNearly every melodramatic impulse has been suppressed in favor of a calm precision that serves both to intensify and delay the emotional impact of the film’s climactic disclosures.
- 80SalonAndrew O'HehirSalonAndrew O'HehirA clanking, old-fashioned period drama infused with almost unbearable grief, Claude Miller's film A Secret has an enormous significance in France that it can never possess elsewhere.
- 70VarietyDennis HarveyVarietyDennis HarveyA fine drama that stands as Gallic vet Claude Miller's best in at least a decade.
- 70Village VoiceVillage VoiceDeepened by its complex back-and-forth chronology, deft shifts in perspective, and a significantly counterintuitive color-coding of past and present, A Secret suggests that it's not illicit passion, but rather the crime of denial, that has screwed up this family down the generations.
- 70NPRBob MondelloNPRBob MondelloClaude Miller's ravishingly shot drama A Secret gives up its titular mystery early, so it may seem odd to speak of the suspense it generates.
- 70Los Angeles TimesKevin ThomasLos Angeles TimesKevin ThomasA harrowing and wrenching coming-of-age story.
- 60New York Daily NewsJami BernardNew York Daily NewsJami BernardBeautifully acted and exquisitely photographed, director Claude Miller's superb drama, from Philippe Grimbert's autobiographical novel, is awash with the ripples created by unlived lives.
- 50New York PostV.A. MusettoNew York PostV.A. MusettoThe fractured timeline covers five decades, which Miller weaves together, with the past shot in color and the present in black and white. Still, the soapy climax is unnecessary.