ABSTRACT
This chapter considers recent British films within the socio-historical contexts of their production and highlights the importance of considering issues of ideology when studying film. A series of films from Chariots of Fire to The King’s Speech might be said to look back to an imagined British past with a sense of nostalgic longing. Secrets and Lies would seem to be a largely hopeful and positive film. As Watson suggests, it is ‘about the forging of ties, the making of connections, the re-establishing of roots and the reinforcement of the family’. The narrative allows for a strong focus on the institution of the family that is so often seen as the bedrock of industrial societies and a key foundation to the American Dream. This is a film that scrutinises our social investment in the mother–child bond and the nature of motherhood.
