My Family's Secret (2010)

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

Colossal bomb and first class stinker of major proportions.Nicolle Tom must have wished she were back making The Nanny rather than this dreadful film.A story where members of the family are being knocked off by a brother suffering from a multiple personality disorder. It's really off the wall, especially when the other personalities seem to emerge and create havoc.The film definitely suffers from excruciating writing. As soon as the therapist knows of a dead sister, he immediately knows that she was murdered. What goes on here?

No masterpiece but not bad. The piece promises more than it delivers, the denouement leaves one wishing for more substance.At the start,troubled Jason Darcie(ex-soap hunk Dylan Neal)tries to commit suicide. It has to do with family secrets revolving around the mysterious death of Jason's sister, long time ago.He is interned seeking treatment, and his concerned wife Lara(Nichole Tom)goes back to his home town looking for financial help and perhaps some answers to Jason's emotional trauma.Jason's dad Paul(Peter McNeill) is senile and in a home,his brother Grady(Philip Riccio)is timid and disturbed,and doesn't offer much, but in her research around town Lara gets closer to Grady and the awful events in the Darcie subconscious.It's no secret to us from the start that Grady suffers from dissociative identity disorder(DDI),aka multiple personality disorder.Shortly after Lara meets him, the audience, not Lara, is gradually introduced to his 5 or 6 personalities, ranging from murderous hood,assertive regular Joe, passive introvert, to innocent black girl. One recourse is to show them in his mind's eye,by showing actor Riccio convincingly talking to himself in different voices, then cutting to the different personalities together over a white background.Another way is by having the actor show a personality transformation within the scene, as when a hostile personality comes to timid Grady's defense and violently pushes away a very surprised offender, Jake(Chris Cogllis). Philip Riccio as Grady, whose looks and acting style reminds one of actor Edward Norton, pulls it off beautifully.Nichole Tom as Lara is good in her role as the involved and worried wife,and Dylan Neal appealing as her troubled husband. The supporting cast is interesting and suitable, but the multiple personality role is an opportunity that actor Riccio uses well to outshine all others.His is a detailed and impressive performance, his mood changes are compelling.Expectations are sky high when the theme of multiple personality(DDI) is involved in a film, and this script treatment falls short of expectations.This is certainly not "Sybil",a classic TV film about DDI as manifested in Sybil,brilliantly played by Sally Field with no less than Joanne Woodward playing her psychiatrist. Joanne won an Oscar in the fifies playing a DDI victim in "Three Faces of Eve", a pioneering film study on the disease which garnered lots of attention. "My Family's Secret" is just a thriller,not focusing on the disorder but on the mystery secret and using a character with DDI to add more interest to the story.Even so,as thrillers go this is not that well crafted or exciting, and the secret not that surprising.No fault of the actors, though.This no Sybil, it wasn't meant to be, but as a thriller it's no Hitchcock either.

Admittedly I wasn't expecting a top-shelf title, but boy-o-boy was this an ordinary movie. I think it's fair to say that after about the first 5-10 minutes of any movie, you can pretty much gauge what kind of quality you're in for & with this one I was filled with dread after about 2 minutes.The movie is a stinker, with Nicholle Thom pretty much the only person who does a reasonable job of acting. The plot could've been interesting, but was destroyed by a shonky support cast & some Swiss-cheese treatment (i.e. holes everywhere).Wasn't the worst movie I've ever sat through, but it's not far off. I'll be forgetting this one in a real hurry.....I hope.

I want back the hour and a half that I spent watching this film!After reading the storyline I looked forward to a film that I thought would be reminiscent of Sybil (one of my favourite films of the era) but I was bitterly disappointed. The only similarity is that one character has multiple personalities, oh and for a film made in 2010 there was enough cheese to make a 70's fondue! The story is about a woman's visit to her husbands home-town and his brother to find out more about her husbands past as he has tried to commit suicide. I spent the film waiting for some sort of surprise or twist but there was neither. The acting was truly awful and the actors looked like they were reading from cue cards. Anyway, I'm glad to be home and off to watch another film on DVD to take the bad taste out of my mouth!