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The Secret 
Actors : Davide Duchovny, Lili Taylor, Olivia Thirlby
Studio : IMAGE ENTERTAINMENT
by IMAGE ENTERTAINMENT
Release Date : 2008-08-12
Publisher : IMAGE ENTERTAINMENT
Availability : Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Number of Items : 1
EAN : 0014381499322
UPC : 014381499322
Avg. Customer Rating: (based on 12 reviews)
List Price : $27.98
Our Price : $9.99
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Product Description |
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In the spirit of Ghost and Birth, Hannah and Benjamin (Lili Taylor, Six Feet Under and David Duchovny, The X-Files) are a happily married couple whose love is tested in ways they never could have imagined in this touching supernatural drama. But when Hannah is killed in a car accident, the couple's strong bond may be responsible for an unusual twist of fate that keeps their love alive -- at the expense of their daughter (Olivia Thirlby, Juno). |
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Marketadvisory.com |
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Compared to pallid supernatural romances like Ghost, The Secret is a fireball of Freudian pathos about a love triangle between parents Benjamin (David Duchovny) and Hannah Marris (Lili Taylor), and their teenage daughter, Samantha (Olivia Thirlby). Directed by Swiss actor Vincent Perez, The Secret succeeds where other cheesy ghost films fail because there is always the possibility that after Benjamin's wife, Hannah, dies in a car accident and comes back to inhabit her daughter's body, Benjamin will be lured into his daughter's arms by sheer grief commingled with desire. The film's operates with increasing tension throughout, starting when Benjamin decides to believe that Sam is temporarily not Sam, but his wife. There are sappy scenes, such as when Sam, as mother Hannah, returns to high school following the accident and flails terribly in teenage situations. But the notion of a mother spying on her daughter through possession recalls Mommie Dearest, in a great way. The real credit in this film goes to Thirlby, who in essence plays two characters well, switching identities throughout. The sexual innuendo she brings to the part adds the zest The Secret needs to elevate it from a suburban nightmare to real horror. Viewers who enjoy The Secret might also look to Argento's mother trilogy, or the recently released French horror film, Inside. That said. The Secret contains no gore and relies on psychological suspense rather than violence to construct its mother/daughter tale. --Trinie Dalton |
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The Secret - Blu-ray Info |
Version: U.S.A / Region-A
MPEG-4 AVC BD-25 / High Profile 4.1
Running time: 1:31:46
Movie size: 18,028,781,568 bytes
Disc size: 23,827,206,008 bytes
Average video bit rate: 19.98 Mbps
DTS-HD Master Audio English 4084 kbps 5.1 / 48kHz / 24-bit / 4084kbps (DTS Core: 5.1 / 48kHz / 24-bit / 1536kbps)
Dolby Digital Audio English 640 kbps 5.1 / 48kHz / 640kbps
Subtitles: English SDH / Spanish
Number of chapters: 12
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the secret is hardly what you think it is |
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This adaptation of a Japanese film was completely not what I expected - it's more a psychological thriller, a different, more intelligent take on the Freaky Friday motif. It brings up many moral and ethical issues that might arise with psychological disorders and traumas. Olivia Thirlby is brilliant and extremely effective in her first role in this film. David Duchovny has a few great moments and in the beginning of the film looks so young, it makes one reminisce the first years of The X-Files. Additionally, the soundtrack is very appropriate and very melodic. |
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Weird is right |
Agree with other reviewer who said this movie is just weird.
Putting aside that the look and feel of this movie is kind of low-budget, after-school special kind of cheap, I tried to focus on the story and the acting.
Olivia Thirlby, who plays the young daughter/possessed by mom's ghost did a very impressive job of making both characters seem very real. Lily Taylor turns in a fine performance - and looks great, more attractive than any of her past roles (wondering if she had work done?) There were times in this movie when both actresses really moved me. David Duchovny... sigh. I am a fan. But every time I see him he just seems so one dimensional. It's like he IS Fox Mulder. I almost laughed when he went to the library to look up possession.
The "lovey dovey" nature of the marriage that they set up at the beginning is a little too much. It might have been more interesting if these folks had a REAL marriage, with conflict and difficulty, and spent their last few months together after the wife's bodily death, working out their issues and saying goodbye instead of acting like a couple of jealous teens. What a rare chance to linger after your own death and get to say the things you never said.
The idea that the mom goes on with the daughter's life and acts like a teenager was a little too "Freaky Friday". They could have done more with the confusion of how to mourn the death of one body, and disappearance of another soul, the soul of a beloved child. You'd like to think it would take a little more time before mom starts smoking pot and going to frat parties when she's in her little girl's body, looking for her daughter's soul.
And the idea of the wife/daughter trying to seduce her husband/dad is just gross. It would have been nice if they had made the tension more about their emotional losses and less about sexual frustration. Thankfully the dad character doesn't go for it.
Overall not great but worth watching for those who are interested in Duchovny's work. |
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"A 36 year old woman in a 16 year old's body. I'm every man's dream." |
THE SECRET is a bit weird and disturbing. David Duchovny's wife and daughter, essentially estranged from each other, are in a horrific car crash. The daughter dies. The distraught wife dies at the same moment crying her daughter's name. Mysteriously, the daughter recovers, only she's no longer Duchovny's daughter, she's Duchovny's wife in their daughter's body.
So far so weird. But THE SECRET, a bizarre take on FREAKY FRIDAY, gets a little disturbing as the Mrs. settles into her daughter's life, discovering (or rediscovering) the joys of being sixteen, including sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll. She also sleeps with (but doesn't seduce) Duchovny, but the intimate adult-to-adult conversations between husband/father and wife/daughter are enough to make your skin crawl, since the line, though never crossed, is toed very tightly.
There is a denoument, but to tell it would be to ruin the ending, and THE SECRET doesn't deserve to be ruined. It is worth watching, though the moral of the story is, unsurprisingly, a bit murky. |
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Borders on Creepy..... |
While this movie doesn't quite cross the line (comes damn close), its hard to get past the creepiness of a Dad cuddling, and behaving in an intimate way with his daughter. The big revelation that the mom learns about her daughter is not so interesting. The daughter is nothing but a slut and druggie.
Movie is just ok. Worthy of a rental, but barely. |
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