Little Secrets (2002) – DVD

**/**** Image A- Sound B+ Extras B
starring Evan Rachel Wood, Michael Angarano, David Gallagher, Vivica A. Fox
screenplay by Jessica Barondes
directed by Blair Treu

by Bill Chambers Little Secrets, a movie about the fear of honesty we have when we’re children, begins in the vein of a Joe Dante suburban satire but ends, oh so detrimentally, like a nightmare of Chris Columbus pap. Directed with genuine zest by Blair Treu, a man whose resume includes a film with the title “Just Like Dad” and episodes of the quickly-jettisoned television adaptation of Chicken Soup for the Soul, Little Secrets grows so self-involved that the dial of its own moral compass comes off its hinge: Treu (ironic spelling, don’t you think, for the director of a film dealing with the subject of lying?) and screenwriter Jessica Barondes steer their picture irreversibly south in the final minutes in what amounts to an act of belligerence–the filmmakers are too proud to admit they’ve made a gross miscalculation of plot, leading not only to the most aggravating closing smooch in a kids’ flick since Columbus’s own Adventures in Babysitting, but also Little Secrets‘ misogynistic aftertaste.

Evan Rachel Wood, whom FILM FREAK CENTRAL’s own Walter Chaw accurately termed “alarmingly thin” in his review of this film, stars as Emily, her neighbourhood’s “secret keeper.” Kids, as we all know, have a burning desire to make a clean breast of their sins, just not to their parents. For a fifty-cent fee, Emily locks the cloak-and-dagger of her peers and juniors away in her steel-trap mind, never to blab them to anyone. One kid, always filthy (he is, in effect, Pigpen to Emily’s Lucy), is digging a tunnel to China, another sneaks kittens into the house, and so on. The confessional sequences are exuberantly strange, and Wood, decked-out in an obnoxious array of Gucci for Toddlers outfits, is something special as Emily, a 14-year-old violin prodigy, dishes up advice and scoffs at every ignorant thing that Philip (the charismatic Michael Angarano), her kindly 12-year-old suitor, has to say.

And yet Treu and Barondes can’t wait to rob Emily of her independent-mindedness, as Little Secrets‘ “Sweet Valley High” epilogue has Philip handing her over to David, his cretinous brother (David Gallagher, all oily blonde hair and duplicitous smiles), as if it’s the troika’s sole option, never mind that she’s not Philip’s to “give.” (“She’s all yours,” Philip says. “Thanks buddy,” he slimefully replies.) Emily, familiar only with David’s name, the fact that he likes the harmonica, and that he sees no shame in snooping around her bedroom without her permission, rewards the golden greaseball with her first kiss as Philip stares on. Turns out she really is as shallow as her haute couteur suggests.

Its premise alone is intriguing enough to earn Little Secrets, if not a recommendation, then some deeper consideration, for it involves children in our therapy culture as both counsellors and patients, capturing something essential of the current phenomenon of kids growing up too fast while managing to avoid, for the most part, the tired lectures against the pre-sexualization of our youth. Alas, imparting the attendant ethical lessons of psychiatry is not the film’s primary goal. The parents in Little Secrets are sympathetic and hug-prone, and in one absurd scene, the mother and father who live next door to Emily are pleasant and accommodating as she barges into their home their first night there to play her instrument in time with a concert on television, thus it’s no wonder that Emily’s ultimate advice to her minions is, Go tell mama and papa all you done wrong. The filmmakers rely on our base neuroses to fill in the threat that each and every one of these secret-tellers perceives, because were they to actually show you a parent/guardian reacting negatively to bad news, Little Secrets would be self-defeating as propaganda. In defense of the Treu, when the film isn’t so conscientious, as in the final seconds, it’s far more aggravating. Psst! Just shut the movie off halfway through.

THE DVD
Columbia TriStar presents Little Secrets in 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen and full-frame transfers on the same side of an RSDL DVD. The image sparkles, but a word of warning that the widescreen version crops both vertical and horizontal information, although it looks better-composed throughout than the fullscreen edition. Audio is unmemorable Dolby Digital 5.1–there is nothing that sets this track apart. Treu and Barondes contribute a feature-length commentary, and while it’s okay for the nitty-gritty details, I preferred Treu’s blanket discussion of the film (along with studied comments from Wood, Angarano, and Vivica A. Fox) in the supplementary making-of (11 mins.)–although I nearly fell out of my chair when Treu notified, with some portent, that Emily is “playing a dangerous game” in Little Secrets. (And I officially did go splat upon hearing him call Gallagher “charming.”) Treu also directly addresses the Philip-Emily-David triangle and seems aware that he committed a conceptual blunder. A tedious 5-minute “Blooper Reel” (sorry to be the anti-Bill Cosby, but kids saying the darnedest things isn’t inherently comedic), and trailers for Little Secrets, Kermit’s Swamp Years, and Stuart Little 2 round out the disc. The DVD–also available in a two-pack with Treu’s Wish Upon a Star–comes packaged with a bonus CD of Sam Cardon’s Dave Grusin-esque score for Little Secrets, a nice collectible incentive.

96 minutes; PG; 1.85:1 (16×9-enhanced), 1.33:1; English DD 5.1, French DD 2.0 (Mono), Spanish DD 2.0 (Mono), Portuguese DD 2.0 (Mono); CC; English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Korean, Thai subtitles; DVD-9 + CD; Region One; Columbia TriStar