**SPOILERS** You see right away in the movie "Secret", or its French title "Si J'Etais Toi", that something just doesn't jive with what's going on the screen. Both mother and daughter Hannah & Sam Marriss, Lili Taylor & Olivia Thirlby, are in the hospital, after surviving a serious traffic accident, with the husband and father Dr. Ben Marriss, David Duchovny, hanging out in the emergency ward, where he would be restricted from being, as the doctors and nurses desperately try to save what's left of his family. I got the impression that Ben had somehow, with superhuman powers, materialized himself into the ward where he was invisible to those working there.
The film gets even more bizarre with Hannah looking as if she survived the accident suddenly reaches out and grabs her daughter, who looks like she's dead, Sam's hand and transfers her life-forces into her body. All this with an almost non concerned Ben, whom no one in the emergency ward seems to notice, looking on! It's later in the movie that we, as well as Ben, see what all this goings on back at the hospital was really all about. Hannah had become her daughter Sam in the flesh while Sam, or Sam's soul, was floating around in the "Astral World", the world between life and death, for all eternity! Or until she replaces Hannah's soul who somehow took over her body!
The complications of this supernatural transfer are enormous in that Ben knowing that his daughter is really his wife has trouble being a husband, which Sam or really Hannah desperately wants, to her! It's later that we see the real reason for this galactic body change and it all had to do with showing Ben, who over the years spoiled her, what a rotten kid his sweet and cuddly daughter Sam really was! All this new information about Sam blows Ben's mind in that he now realizes that he by him not taking control her life Sam had become a pot smoking and coke sniffing addict and promiscuous, Sam actually had her boyfriend's name Justin tattooed on her pretty behind, to boot!
****SPOILERS**** It's later that Sam, or her soul, takes back what's so rightfully her's, her mind & body, and as they say in regards to Union/Management negotiated contracts she became "whole" again. Now with his daughter back home and alive Ben shows Sam a little something that her deceased mother left to her from the world beyond. The surprise package, in fact a camcorder recording, that Hannah left Sam was very touching indeed but how she could possibly have done it, being that she was dead and buried when the tape was obviously made, stretched creditability, even in a movie about the supernatural, to the absolute, or outer, limits!
P.S The film "Secret" is actually a remake, or Americanized vision, of the 1999 Japanese supernatural/spiritual movie "Himhus". It incidentally also has in its credits Hiroshi Saito who wrote the screenplay to both, in English and Japanese, films.
The film gets even more bizarre with Hannah looking as if she survived the accident suddenly reaches out and grabs her daughter, who looks like she's dead, Sam's hand and transfers her life-forces into her body. All this with an almost non concerned Ben, whom no one in the emergency ward seems to notice, looking on! It's later in the movie that we, as well as Ben, see what all this goings on back at the hospital was really all about. Hannah had become her daughter Sam in the flesh while Sam, or Sam's soul, was floating around in the "Astral World", the world between life and death, for all eternity! Or until she replaces Hannah's soul who somehow took over her body!
The complications of this supernatural transfer are enormous in that Ben knowing that his daughter is really his wife has trouble being a husband, which Sam or really Hannah desperately wants, to her! It's later that we see the real reason for this galactic body change and it all had to do with showing Ben, who over the years spoiled her, what a rotten kid his sweet and cuddly daughter Sam really was! All this new information about Sam blows Ben's mind in that he now realizes that he by him not taking control her life Sam had become a pot smoking and coke sniffing addict and promiscuous, Sam actually had her boyfriend's name Justin tattooed on her pretty behind, to boot!
****SPOILERS**** It's later that Sam, or her soul, takes back what's so rightfully her's, her mind & body, and as they say in regards to Union/Management negotiated contracts she became "whole" again. Now with his daughter back home and alive Ben shows Sam a little something that her deceased mother left to her from the world beyond. The surprise package, in fact a camcorder recording, that Hannah left Sam was very touching indeed but how she could possibly have done it, being that she was dead and buried when the tape was obviously made, stretched creditability, even in a movie about the supernatural, to the absolute, or outer, limits!
P.S The film "Secret" is actually a remake, or Americanized vision, of the 1999 Japanese supernatural/spiritual movie "Himhus". It incidentally also has in its credits Hiroshi Saito who wrote the screenplay to both, in English and Japanese, films.