The Secret (2007 film)

The Secret
Promotional film poster
French	Si j'étais toi
Directed by	Vincent Perez
Written by	Ann Cherkis
Produced by	Virginie Silla
Starring	David Duchovny Olivia Thirlby Lili Taylor
Cinematography	Paul Sarossy
Music by	Nathaniel Méchaly
Release date	10 October 2007 (2007-10-10)
Country	France
Language	English

The Secret (French: Si j'étais toi; lit. 'If I were you') is a 2007 French thriller film directed by Vincent Perez and starring David Duchovny, Olivia Thirlby, and Lili Taylor. It is a remake of Yōjirō Takita's Himitsu, a 1999 Japanese film produced by Yasuhiro Mase, written by Hiroshi Saitô.

Plot

The beginning of the film reveals the strained relationship between Hannah (Lili Taylor) and her teenaged daughter Samantha (Olivia Thirlby). Hannah has been the primary disciplinarian as opposed to Samantha's permissive father Ben (David Duchovny). During a heated argument between Hannah and Samantha, Hannah's focus is momentarily diverted from the road which results in a head-on collision with an oncoming semi-truck. Both end up in the local ICU. Both of them code, resulting in Hannah's death. Unknown to Ben, Hannah's spirit migrates to Samantha's body. However, he finally believes his wife when she tells him things that only his wife would know. Both resolve that Hannah continue to live as Samantha to keep her life intact for if and when she returns. Hannah, living in Samantha's body, endeavors to keep up an emotional relationship with the husband/father, while struggling with the often confusing impulses that teenagers often feel. Ben (David Duchovny) and Hannah often come perilously close to being intimate as man and wife. Her experience helps her to learn a lot about the previously unknown (to her) life her daughter was living and helps her to see how harrowing a teen's life can be in these times, as she struggles to walk the tightrope many teens must negotiate. She's confronted by conflicting pulls between the alluring attractions adolescents face every day and the demands of schoolwork that she finds largely unfamiliar to her since a couple of decades have passed since her own graduation. As she discovers, Samantha's life has been a challenge to meet her parents' expectations for academic excellence and behavior, all the while being overwhelmed by the hormones of adolescence, in many ways more powerful than any of the drugs the kids experiment with. This includes the discovery that Samantha was having sex with multiple partners. It is at times difficult for her to keep that grip; but, for Ben, the possessiveness he feels toward his wife's soul in his daughter's body threatens to completely overwhelm his life as well as hers, with nearly disastrous results. She also began to rediscover her own lost dreams when she gains critical acclaim from the high school faculty for her extraordinary photography.

This conflict one day finally comes to head when Hannah/Samantha escape through Samantha's bedroom window and goes to Samantha's friends where they persuade her to try K (Ketamine) which causes her to hallucinate, seeing herself dead as Hannah. Ben, who'd been looking for her, tracks her down to Samantha's friends. Taking her home, Samantha briefly reappears then disappears again over the traumatic realization that her mother was dead. Ben and Hannah both realize that Samantha is coming back. Hannah makes final preparations for Samantha's return, including making a video for Samantha to view explaining to her what happened. It dramatically impacts Samantha, who belatedly realizes how much she really did love her mother.

The final scene shows a radically changed Samantha, who now has adopted her mother's handwriting. She is also now in a fully committed relationship with just a single partner.

Cast

• David Duchovny as Dr. Ben Marris
• Olivia Thirlby as Samantha Marris
• Lili Taylor as Hannah Marris
• Brendan Sexton III as Ethan

External links

• The Secret at IMDb
• The Secret at Rotten Tomatoes
• The Secret at AllMovie