Dirty Little Secret

Author(s): Evan (NY)
Dirty Little Secret

Director: Noah Baumbach
Writer: Noah Baumbach and Frank Warren

Cast
Dustin Hoffman – Frank Warren
Josh Brolin – Anonymous Man
Frances McDormand - Anonymous Woman
Randy Shelly - Anonymous Teen

Tagline: “Secrets are only safe in the most public of places.”

Synopsis:

Frank
The simple concept of the Post Secret project was that completely anonymous people decorate a postcard and portray a secret that they had never previously revealed. No restrictions are made on the content of the
secret; only that it must be completely truthful and must never have been spoken before…Frank Warren started the website on blogspot on January 1st, 2005. He receives thousands of postcards monthly and has to select a few every week to go on the site. Topics range from sexual misconduct and murder to secret phobias or lies. Each postcard tells a story, and Frank likes to play the stories out in his head the way he thinks they have gone. When three postcards come the same day, from the same post office, he looks them over and thinks out the story…

Anonymous Man
Postcard: “I don’t want him to turn out like me”

The man is a heavy drinker and has, on multiple occasions had to be taken to the hospital to have his stomach pumped. He loses his job and can no longer provide for his family. He is unaware of his wife’s anger, and completely ignores his son… unless he’s drunk. When he is drunk he gets crazy. He beats his wife and tells his son to perform obscene acts on him. When he turns sober and remembers what he has done he regrets it completely. A stake is driven through his stomach each time he wakes up and remembers what he has done. But he can’t talk to them about it. He pretends he doesn’t remember, that everything is OK.

Anonymous Woman
Postcard: “I saved the life of someone I truly hate. Nobody will ever know that it was me.”

The woman hated her husband not only was he irresponsible and lazy, he was mean. However loud she yelled, he would never do what she told him to. It was a waste of her life to stick around, but without a high school diploma, she couldn’t provide for her own son. Once, her son was out at a movie, alone, and her husband collapsed. She rushed over and felt for a pulse. Upon locating it, she performed CPR on him until a glob of something shot out of his mouth. She laid him on his bed and walks out of the room, to clean the kitchen.

Anonymous Teen
Postcard: “I want life to be simple and easy… again.”

The Teenager sat alone in movie theatres. He liked to watch other people’s lives, because his was plainly unbearable. Also, movies always had happy endings. His parents always fought, and when his father got drunk, he molested him. The teenager was also gay, but he couldn’t tell anyone. His father had made him want things that only homosexuals and women want. He wished he could just go back to when he was younger, when playing on his own was fun, when he could use his imagination without the rude interruptions that the real world presented. The teenager wants to be in that place again, a place where everything is simple and easy, and where his mother and father were still in love.

What The Press Would Say

Although many post-secret postcards are hilarious and cool, many that are sent to Frank Warren concern very serious issues in peoples lives, and “Dirty Little Secret,” Noah Baumbachs new film dives into where all the bad starts in people. Following a normal, three-person suburban family, Mr. Baumbach crafts an intensely vivid portrayal of guilt, grief, and the power that every person has to change themselves. In this film, the first story that is shown is that of Frank Warren, the creator of the post-secret art movement. Dustin Hoffman gives a surprisingly reserved performance as the mellow intellectual, and lover of art. What he imagines upon receiving three postcards from the same post-office is the tight story of a woman who has an abusive husband, an alcoholic husband who molests his son, and a teenage boy who struggles with his sexuality, and his family life. The entire cast does a great job at showing just how they distance themselves from each other, and how some are struggling to bet back. Frances McDormand, who plays the anonymous women, gives a stunning performance as the woman who has a hate for her husband, but doesn’t show it. She keeps her anger bottled up, making her completely oblivious to how her son is treated. Josh Brolin also gives a powerhouse performance as an alcoholic who refuses to seek help, even though he knows he abuses his son when he is drunk. Showing us every side of the complicated octagon of a man, Mr. Brolin proves once again that he is one of the best working actors today. The young Randy Shelly, though, gives the best performance in the film. As the last story told, I expected for it to be less powerful, as the third acts of other of Noah Baumbachs films have been. I was mistaken. Mr. Shelly gives a superb portrayal of a boy who is hurt by his father, but has learned to deal. Although he is dealing with normal teenage things as well, most of these are excluded from the film. Mr. Shelly transports us deep inside the mind of this nameless character with his heartbreaking performance, as we learn about his mixed feelings about his sexuality, the grief he feels about his parents, and the longing and hope that things will go back to the way they used to be, something only a child could ever sincerely believe. Digging deep into the psychology of humans, “Dirty Little Secret” is a must see film for anyone who has ever felt, well, alone.