“CAN YOU KEEP A SECRET” IS something I still get asked, even though the person asking me knows the answer. I am not a gossiper by nature, though I enjoy being in the know. From the jobs I have worked, I never told anyone about the employee who was cheating on his wife despite the fact she worked at the same company. Or, there was another employee who during her lunchtime would partake in some heavy-duty drug use. She would be tripping at her desk but no one around her seemed to notice. I used to wonder if she purposely wore her large tinted glasses at the office to hide her eyes because she did not need glasses to read. I have been told such a variety of secrets by different people that I could probably write a book about them. From the sad to the bizarre, I have been the keeper of people’s secrets. It is funny because for me the definition of secret means not telling anyone; so, I do not always understand a person’s motives that compel them to share their secrets with someone else. Though, as I just wrote that I am recalling an employee I worked with who was planning to get back at her boss by pranking him. She started to tell me what she was going to do but I stopped her. I did not want to know anything so I could not be accused of being a co-conspirator.      ONE OF THE TOUGHEST SECRETS I had to keep inside of me was not necessarily a secret. I had heard an employee talking to another employee about our boss was going to let someone in our department go, mentioning the person by name. Since I had no way to verify their statement, as far as I was concerned that employee was gossiping. However, that did not make me feel any better whenever I was around the employee who was supposedly going to be fired. The reason being, she had recently found a house she wanted to buy and was starting the process of getting approved with her bank. I knew if she was let go before the bank did a credit check on her, she might not get approved.  Or worse, she gets approved and buys the house but then cannot afford it because she no longer has a job. I did not know what to do and started feeling uncomfortable anytime I was around her. No matter how much discomfort I was experiencing back then, it paled in comparison to what the main character had to endure in this dramatic, biographical film.      WHAT SHE READ THAT CAME ACROSS her computer was top secret information. If Katherine Gun, played by Keira Knightley (The Imitation Game, The Nutcracker and the Four Realms), told anyone about it she could be jailed; but if she did not say something, many people could die. With Matthew Goode (Match Point, A Single Man) as Peter Beaumont, Indira Varma (Exodus: Gods and Kings, Rome-TV) as Shami Chakrabarti, Ralph Fiennes (The White Crow, A Bigger Splash) as Ben Emmerson and Rhys Ifans (Notting Hill, Snowden) as Ed Vulliamy; this film festival winner was based on a true story. Keira’s performance was so believable and emotional that I could not keep my eyes off her. The story was both incredible and incredulous. I found myself sympathizing with the characters to the point where I was experiencing a bit of anxiety; that is how good the actors were in their roles, along with the pacing of the story. Because this movie was only being showed on a limited schedule at the theater, I feel many people will miss the opportunity to experience this picture. It is not a secret; this movie entertained and informed me.

3 stars