Pequeno Grande Segredo

There are just so many problems with this movie! I've always liked Melissa Joan Hart so I thought I'd watch. It was mediocre at best. They barely scratched the surface yet didn't go completely over the top until the end like a lot of these Lifetime movies do. It was about a teenage girl who is embarrassed by her mother who appears to have it all together at work as an intelligent hard working nurse until you see their house and the mom is a hoarder. As it turns out, she was a complete neat freak before the father left because of it and now she's gone the other direction. There are also 2 older siblings that have moved out and don't come around much. Well, in the end this takes a VERY DARK, DISTURBED AND UNDESERVED turn. And I'm saying this about a Lifetime movie mind you!! This is not the way you treat people with mental illness!! I wouldn't recommend this film on that alone.

Melissa Joan Hart as Joanna and Lizzie Boys as her daughter, Lucy, both shine in this Lifetime movie about a woman who is essentially, a pack rat and will not part with anything. It gets so bad that she loses her husband and her 2 older children move out. Lucy and her mom keep her secret well guarded. Their house looks like a wall-to-wall garage sale. I never knew that this was actually a sickness, The movie has an unhappy ending, though. More like this!!!

"Dirty Little Secret" starts out good and effectively sets up the plot for how Hart's character, Joanna, became a hoarder, and the effect her disorder has on her children, particularly Lucy (Lizzie Boys). We see Lucy go on a path to discovery of what a normal functioning family looks like, and sees how a boy in her class has come to terms with his mom's recovery from alcoholism, and we develop hope that she will gain inner strength and feel empowered to lead her mother to admitting her problem and get her on the path to redemption. And the storyline does get us to the point where Lucy confronts her mother, and Joanna does show signs of realizing her problem. The viewer has hope that Joanna will be redeemed and Lizzie will prove mature beyond her years.

Then it all goes downhill from there. Everything gets weird and nonsensical. I won't give away the details, but the last 30 minutes was bizarre.

I think the Lifetime network should have a contest of its viewers to see who can write a better ending to this otherwise pretty good movie.

This was really decent up until the last 20 min when it went completely off the rails. Missed opportunity for redemption and a better ending. Two stars for great acting by Melissa Joan Hart and Lizzie Boys but this was truly awful. No idea what the writers or producers were thinking here but it doesn't add up.

No spoilers here so please read on. Dirty Little Secret is about a mother and daughter living with a mother's illness that many people suffer from which is hoarding and compulsive purchasing of on line goods. Outside of their home Joanna (Melissa Joan Hart) lives a somewhat normal life at work and wishes to start dating as a single mom supporting one of her three daughters Lucy (Lizzie Boys) who remained at home after her husband and two (2) other daughters moved out of their home not wanting to tolerate her mothers hoarding any longer.

Joanna even meets a wonderful man but before the relationship can even get to first base Joanna quickly realizes that she cannot have anyone see what a mess her home has become so she breaks off this potentially loving relationship. Joanna's daughter Joy (Lizzie Boys) certainly realizes that her mother has a difficult yet incurable illness with her hoarding and non stop purchasing of on line orders. Joy is the most affected by her mothers illness which leaves her no choice but to continue to create white lies about her homelife to her friends and her school's guidance counsellor.

There is a natural magnetism that occurs between a parent and their children and flaws in a persons character whether they are physical or mental are regularly overlooked with the hope that their problem(s) will simply go away on their own. Such is not the case, certainly not in this made for TV film although who of us can really understand the family dynamics unless we lived it ourselves. I am eternally grateful that my own parents were stable hard working and loving parents and their biggest problem was their own children (including myself) leaving our bedrooms a bit messy.

So for those who did not like the film due to the strange ending (no spoiler here) please try and consider that there are real problems out there and when a film producer and director have approximately 90 minutes to share their story with us accept that there is a lot more to a families story that we are thankfully shared the misery of exploring.

I give the film a respectable 6 out of 10 IMDb rating.