STRAIGHT-TO-DVD SPOTLIGHT: The Secret

The Secret

Rated R
Running time: 1 hr 32 mins
DVD Release Date: August 12th

Cast:

David Duchovny
Olivia Thirlby

Lili Taylor

MY REVIEW

The Secret is about a mother played by Lily Taylor (Ransom) and daughter played by Olivia Thirlby (Juno, Snow Angels) who get in a horrific car accident, and the mother dies. When the daughter wakes up, she is not quite herself, but actually "possessed" by the spirit of her mother. It doesn't take much to convince the husband/father played by David Duchovny (TV's The X-Files) what is really going on. This all happens within maybe the first fifteen minutes of the film. The rest of the story depicts the mother as the young girl trying to live the life of her teenage daughter that she never got along with. It also shows the struggles between her and her husband, seeing as how they can't really be a couple anymore, and do their behind closed door deeds.

The Secret is kind of a creepy movie, and not in a good scary kind of way. Creepy because the interaction between Duchovny and Thirlby borders on some kind of sick pedophile level. This teenage girl/mother and wife wants to have sex with her husband, but the husband declines due to the state of his wifes current situation, but you can tell he wants to as well. And that's just deeply disturbing in my eyes. Not just because of the actors, but simply because of that subject material. They fight like a real married couple, which is bizzare when they do it in public like a grocery store in one scene. They sleep in the same bed together, and even spoon eachother. I don't know, just was thrown off by it all.

The storyline of the possessed Thirlby trying to live the life of a teenage girl is just weak. Nothing about this girls life is all that interesting. Shes a walking film stereotype of rebelious teenage daughter who hates one of her parents (in this films case, the mother who currently possesses her body). She is friends with the wrong crowd...a group of punk rockers and druggies. She has some weird love relationship with one of the boys in that group, but also some crazy and unexplained sexual relationship with another guy at school (the presumed "hot tough guy" of the school). However the latter have to that story litteraly goes nowhere. The guy is in maybe two scenes and we never see him again, and that story is left WIDE open and never touched on again.

This whole movie didn't feel like a straight to DVD film, more like a straight to TV movie you would see on Lifetime or something. The quality wasn't all that great. The direction was bland and uninteresting. The performances were OK. Duchovny has always been a standard but sometimes great actor, but mainly on TV. Thirlby is a wonderful young actress, and I can see becoming quite a huge name here in a few years. Her performance in Snow Angels earlier this year really displayed that promise, she was excellent. Here, she is good but the screenplay doesn't work in her favor and her performance just goes unnoticed.

Eh, don't bother with this movie, in my opinion.

MIKEY @ THE MOVIES OFFICIAL RATING: *1/2 out of *****

*This is the 101st new film I've seen and reviewed this year.

*This film is now on DVD.

*Straight-to-DVD films do not qualify for my awards.