Keeping Secrets (1991) Reviews

• It fights a plastic-coated battle of artificiality, but the point comes through okay...

  moonspinner552009-03-05

  Actress Suzanne Somers wrote a bracing book recalling her early beginnings as an actress, and before that as a youngster growing up in fear and dread as the daughter of an alcoholic father, however this telefilm predictably doesn't dig as deeply as its source material. Somers plays herself throughout most of the picture, dating David Birney who plays her real-life husband Alan Hamel. It's like sensory deprivation, a tatty game of who's who. If this gamble doesn't pay off, at least the picture looks good, with fine location shooting in San Francisco and good cinematography by Sandi Sissel. The point of the story, that children of an abusive alcoholic can break the family pattern, is made quite well despite the fact the actors involved do not convince as a familial unit. This was an honest attempt at making a message movie (with Hollywood trimmings), but it ultimately seems too tame.

• Alcoholic family life

  johncwoodson2007-01-04

  For any person who had, or currently has, and alcoholic parent, then this is a "must see" film that you will definitely learn something from by watching it. It is a well acted, down to earth portrayal of what it is like for a person to endure growing up in a dysfunctional type of alcoholic family environment. Unfortunately, it is currently (Jan. 2007) impossible to purchase a copy of this film either new or used. So if you would like to watch it, then try checking the TV schedule on the Lifetime TV network website. I last saw it playing on their Lifetime TV Movie channel (Different than the Lifetime TV channel) about two to three years ago.