Guarded Secrets (2004) User Reviews

Surprisingly watchable

[Mort-31 · 7/10 · 9 October 2004]

rarely does one see Hungarian films in Austria. This one was a Hungarian-Finn-Austrian co-production, which, i suppose, is the reason why I had the chance to see it here.

"Guarded Secrets" is a really nice and touching movie, with quite a complex story and interesting characters, stupendously acted, especially by the two Irma Varrós. The dialogue got a little too sentimental for my taste, but that is typically Hungarian.

I really liked the ending: After two thirds of the film I started asking myself: how can they possibly put a sound end to this story? And they really managed to!

All in all, I found this film surprisingly watchable, much better than "Szép napok" by Kornél Mundruczó, which I found a little too over-the-top.

A story from the reality

[webberke · 10/10 · 3 February 2004]

This is a realistic story of an 18 year old girl who is pregnant and has only one choose to survive: sell her child to Canada. She is already contacted with Katinka (Kati Outinen great finnish actress) who is dealing with such children. But Kisirma (the girl) has an idea. She deeply wants to find her mother, since she is grewn up in an institut for all those who has no family. She found a path to her grandfather who can help her out. Her mother lives in Canada as well. So when she arrived in Canada, looked after her mother. And she found her. Her emotions tells : selling her child is not good. That is what her mother did 18 years ago! So she come back to Hungary, find love and take the child. Very emotionous and realistic story with great actress Eszter Bagaméri who received the Best Actress award at the Hungarian Film Awards in 2004 for this film. It tells us in a very unusal way that how a teenagers life turns upside down and how her emotions became from an average teenagers emotions into an adults. A must see.