Director
Yuval Adler

Stars
Noomi Rapace, Chris Messina, Joel Kinnaman and Amy Seimetz

This taut and intriguing drama stars The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’s Noomi Rapace as Maja, a Romanian woman who relocated to the U.S shortly after WWII and has since started a new life with her husband, Lewis (Chris Messina) and young son, Patrick. While out running a few errands downtown one day, she sees a man (played by Joel Kinnaman) who is clearly no stranger to her. Something about him has made some terrible memories come flooding back, but she’s not entirely sure if this man is who she believes him to be. Completely consumed by the unrelenting need to know, Maya begins to stalk him.

Ordinarily, I struggle to sum up my thoughts of a film in a snappy and constructively worded sentence, but that’s not the case this time. Simply put, The Secrets We Keep consistently draws more interest than it does plausibility. Its fast-moving pace and the intensity of its hell-bent female protagonist don’t let viewers ponder for too long over its questionable, yet intriguing plot developments. There’s definitely enough scope to Maja’s investigation via these developments to keep viewers guessing, even if the conclusion to an early question asked remains predictably answered.

I can safely file The Secrets We Keep in the same category that my co-writer and dear friend Jell placed Becky into in her review; it’s a decent way to spend an hour and a half in a year where many of us have an abundance of time to kill. To be any better than that, The Secrets We Keep needed some class in its script-writing and performances, which it is lacking for me.

3 stars

Viewer Discretion
MA15+ (Strong themes, violence, sexual violence and coarse language)

Trailer
The Secrets We Keep

Moviedoc thanks The Reset Collective, Ned & Co Marketing and Publicity and Annette Smith for providing the screener link to watch and review this film.

The Secrets We Keep is screening exclusively at Palace cinemas for a limited season across Australia from September 17 and is available to rent via the Foxtel store from October 21.

Review by Leigh for Moviedoc
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