| Little Secrets | |
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Theatrical release poster |
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| Directed by | Blair Treu |
| Produced by | Jessica Barondes Don Schain Blair Treu |
| Written by | Jessica Barondes |
| Starring | Evan Rachel Wood Michael Angarano David Gallagher |
| Music by | Sam Cardon |
| Cinematography | Brian Sullivan |
| Editing by | Jerry Stayner |
| Distributed by | TriStar Pictures |
| Release date(s) | October 17, 2001 (Heartland) August 23, 2002 |
| Running time | 96 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $2.5 million |
| Box office | $405,792[1] |
Little Secrets is a 2002 independent comedy-drama film starring Evan Rachel Wood, Michael Angarano, and David Gallagher. It premiered in the Heartland Film Festival in October 2001, and made its limited theatrical release on August 23, 2002.
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Emily Lindstrom (Evan Rachel Wood), an aspiring 14-year-old violinist, spends her summer practicing for an audition to get into the InterMountain Youth Symphony Orchestra (Salt Lake City, Utah) while her friend, Jenny (Haley McCormick), goes off to camp. She also runs a secret-keeping business, in which other children give her fifty cents to tell her a secret, which she promises to keep; this is a talent that she is normally very good at. Meanwhile, her parents are expecting another child and seem to care more about it than Emily.
New neighbors move in next door, including Philip (Michael Angarano). During the move, he accidentally breaks a valued chess piece and is caught by Emily as he attempts to bury it in the front garden. He pays her fifty cents to keep his deed a secret, and to hide the piece in her treasure trunk (along with other broken property from her other clients, in paper bags labeled with their names).
When Philip decides to join Emily in an afternoon tea session using her family's expensive china, they accidentally break one of the teacups. Emily is faced with the challenge of keeping her own secret and having someone else know about it. Meanwhile, as Philip begins falling for her, his brother David (David Gallagher) enters the picture. He had been at tennis camp, but was sent back home because he allegedly got drunk and was involved in a car accident. Philip tells her this family secret in exchange that she tells him a secret about her greetings with her friends. She starts getting upset, and says that a person who drinks and drives will do it again, before storming off. She then starts to lose her secret-keeping talent as she falls for David. He also begins falling for her, which makes Philip jealous.
During her mother's baby shower, David tries to talk to Emily, and she reveals that she knows how he was expelled from tennis camp. After, she goes to get her violin from the roof and tumbles to the ground, necessitating a trip to the hospital. While she is there, her mother gives birth to her sister Grace. Everyone is by Emily's hospital bed except David, who is eavesdropping behind the curtain. Her friends ask if her sister looks like she did when she was a baby, and she reveals that she is adopted. Her birth parents were killed while driving in a car when she was 10 months old after being struck by a drunk driver, and she considers it a miracle that she lived. The driver spent one year in prison and barely a month after being released, crashed into someone else's car and killed himself. Upon hearing this, David feels very guilty and understands why she despises him so much. After she is released from the hospital, she and Philip return all of the paper bags to her clients. To thank him, she kisses him on the cheek. Then David appears, and she kisses him on the lips.
Little Secrets received mixed to positive reviews upon release, some stating it was a good film for 2001. Rotten Tomatoes gave the film a 60% rating, with the consesus stating "Little Secrets is wholesome entertainment for the kids, but also rather bland."[2] IMDb's rating is 6 stars. Both the VHS and DVD releases on Amazon.com have a 5 and a half stars rating. It also has won a Film Advisory Board award. Ebert & Roeper reviewed the film simply with their infamous "Two thumbs up" quote, meaning their review was positive.
The film made its TV premiere on the channel now known as Encore WAM on September 5, 2003. After the film premiered, Evan Rachel Wood, the star of the film, who also played Jessie Sammler on ABC's Once and Again, told the story behind the movie in a 3-minute interview for WAM! entitled Evan Rachel Wood on Little Secrets.
Little Secrets was originally scheduled to play on April 4, 2005, on the Disney Channel, but it actually made its free-TV premiere on the Hallmark Channel on April 15, 2006. It also aired on Hallmark Movie Channel. On July 11, 2008, it was announced that the Disney Channel would start to air the film as well. Since Disney Channel is the only Disney-owned network in the U.S. that has never aired Evan Rachel Wood content since she was born September 7, 1987, in Raleigh, North Carolina, the station may have the chance to air Little Secrets by the end of 2009 or as early as 2010. On November 20, 2009, it is said that The Walt Disney Company has approved the première of Little Secrets on the U.S. Disney Channel. However, in January 2010, Starz and its family of channels have regained the rights to the film and Disney Channel in the U.S. has rejected the idea a second time. However, on March 11, 2010, it was announced that Disney Channel will team up with the Liberty Starz family of channels (including Starz Kids & Family, and Encore WAM) to air Little Secrets. This will make it the first time in the United States a non-Disney film written by Jessica Barondes has aired on Disney Channel and the networks of Liberty Starz since 2004.
It also aired on Encore Love since 2011.
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