Watch Little Secrets

Little Secrets is a 2001 family drama film directed by Blair Treu and starring Evan Rachel Wood, Michael Angarano, and David Gallagher. The movie is set in the beautiful suburbs of Salt Lake City, Utah, where an ambitious 14-year-old violinist named Emily Lindstrom (Evan Rachel Wood) runs a secret business from her mother's garage. Emily’s business is neither drugs nor alcohol. Instead, she has become famous in her neighborhood for being the go-to person for holding people's secrets. Emily feels that people often keep secrets to protect themselves or to protect others, but she believes that some secrets need to be told to be able to move on from them. Therefore, Emily keenly listens to her clients and provides the necessary advice and wisdom to help them unburden themselves.

Emily’s reputation as “the secret keeper” gets a significant boost when a baby grand piano is dropped off in her garage. It happens that the piano belongs to David and Claire, a newlywed couple who are living in the neighborhood. Claire is a pianist and has always dreamed of playing the piece, ‘Claire de Lune’ on her wedding day, but she couldn’t do it because of the absence of a grand piano. Emily offers to let Claire play the piece on her beautiful new piano, with one condition: the couple has to reveal their deepest secrets. Claire and David eventually come to Emily and tell their secrets, which become a significant turning point in their marriage. Emily also learns a valuable lesson herself that sometimes people may carry around secrets that are too challenging to share.

Besides running the secret-keeping business and helping people, Emily has an immense passion for playing the violin. She is preparing for an audition at a music school in San Francisco, and her success in the audition will enable her to achieve her life-long ambition of becoming a professional violinist. Meanwhile, Emily starts to develop a crush on Philip, a boy from her school who gives her violin lessons. Emily’s life changes significantly when another boy, a ten-year-old named Little Timothy (Michael Angarano), knocks on her door and asks for her help. Timothy is new in the neighborhood, and he has a painful past involving his mother's abandonment. Emily agrees to help Timothy, and she soon discovers that Timothy’s past holds a dangerous secret that could destroy their neighborhood’s peaceful existence.

The movie's plot takes a dramatic turn when one of Emily's clients, a young girl named Lucy, reveals that her mother has left her and her father. However, Emily soon discovers that the father was aware that the mother planned to leave, but instead of telling Lucy, he consulted Emily to help him come up with the best way to reveal the truth. Emily decides to protect Lucy by not telling her the truth and motivating her to keep believing in her dream of becoming a ballerina.

In the end, Timothy’s presence in the neighborhood unravels an old mystery, and Emily’s neighbors have to come together to solve the puzzle. Emily, Timothy, and Philip work together on this final mission to bring peace to Timothy’s life and save the neighborhood from potential danger. Their joint effort enforces the idea that even though secrets may be hard to bear, they can only be dealt with through the support of a caring community.

Little Secrets is a beautifully crafted movie, packed with heart and soul, that focuses on the themes of friendship, community, and the importance of sharing. The movie explores how secrets can be both empowering and dangerous, and how they can impact individual lives as well as a community. Above all, Little Secrets conveys the message that secrets are part and parcel of our lives, but they don't have to control us. Ultimately, the truth can unite a community and bring about healing, growth, and an unbreakable bond between neighbors.

Little Secrets is a 2002 drama with a runtime of 1 hour and 36 minutes. It has received moderate reviews from critics and viewers, who have given it an IMDb score of 6.4 and a MetaScore of 52.