Holiday Weekend Movie Forecast: Milk, Four Christmases

The Times's Stephen Holden calls The Secrets "a religious soap opera and feminist cri de coeur." But despite all that he kinda likes it: "At first, the movie, directed by the Israeli filmmaker Avi Nesher from a screenplay he wrote with Hadar Galron, a London-born feminist playwright, actress and Orthodox Jew, is a sober exploration of limited female opportunities in a rigidly patriarchal environment. But after two French characters, one played by the great French actress Fanny Ardant, are introduced, the movie becomes an intriguing, occasionally discordant hybrid of austere Israeli and voluptuous French filmmaking traditions. Although the story remains in Israel, in spirit the movie migrates from the Middle East to France before returning to Israel for a pat, feel-good ending."