Gregg Binkley | Through the Shattered Lens

2006’s Hidden Secrets takes place over the course of one very long weekend.

The death of their friend Chris has reunited a group of acquaintances, who gather for the funeral and then end up staying with Chris’s sister, Sherry (Tracy Melchior), for the weekend. The men gather on her roof and hammer tiles. The women …. well, for the most part, the women are just portrayed as being catty and judgmental.

For instance, Rhonda (Autumn Paul), who is married to Christian book author Harold (Gregg Brinkley), is offended that Gary (John Schneider) is doing stem cell research and is a Jewish agnostic who spends most of his time challenging Rhonda’s super-strict interpretation of the Bible. Interestingly enough, considering that this is a Pureflix film, Rhonda is not portrayed in a positive light and Gary usually gets the better of her in their arguments. Rhonda even apologizes at the end for being so judgmental. Of course, since this is a Pureflix film, Gary still ends up converting.

Pastor Jeremy (David A.R. White) is dating reporter Rachel (Staci Keanan). Rachel suspects that Jeremy is still in love with his ex-girlfriend, Sherry. Rachel is correct. You have to feel bad for Rachel, who certainly deserved better than she got in this movie. Jeremy and Rachel end up sharing a bed at Sherry’s house, which freaks Jeremy out because he’s all about abstinence.

Michael (Corin Nemec) is a gay Christian who practices celibacy and whose main function seems to be to offer people advice.

Anthony (Sean Sedgwick) is a rough and tumble guy who shows up with his latest girlfriend, Sally (Rachael Lampa), and who takes her out dancing for her birthday, even though Rhonda says that Christians shouldn’t dance.

The film follows these characters over the weekend, basically doing a Big Chill sort of thing. Rhonda judges everyone. Gary is sarcastic. Jeremy is torn between Sherry and Rachel. The night of dancing for Sally’s birthday turns into an extended scene where Anthony, Jeremy, and Harold take to the stage and perform a song. It all wraps up with everyone confessing their fears during a church service and I have to admit that I felt sorry for all the people at the church who probably didn’t have the slightest idea why one group of people suddenly hijacked the service to discuss their own problems.

As far as PureFlix films go, this one was well-made and it actually did have some potential. No one was completely right and no one was completely wrong. The main message seemed to be accept and love one another. That said, it also had some fairly serious flaws. John Schneider doesn’t give a bad performance but he was still miscast as a Jewish abortionist. I love Corin Nemec and he gave one of the better performances in Hidden Secrets but the film used his character to promote the destructive “ex-gay” movement and it’s difficult not to be bothered by that. And finally, the resolution of Sherry/Jeremy/Rachel love triangle left me feeling that Jeremy was essentially a terrible, self-absorbed person. I don’t think that was what the film was going for but, regardless….

Hidden Secrets is an uneven film, to say the least. At its best, it made me miss some of my old friends. It’s been a while since we’ve all gotten together. Hopefully, when we next see each other, it won’t be at another funeral.

Do you remember Three’s Company?

The sitcom was a big hit when it aired in the 70s and 80s and it still gets a lot of play in syndication today. Based on a British sitcom (and you would really be surprised to how closely the first season followed the original series), Three’s Company starred John Ritter as Jack Tripper, an aspiring chef who moved in with two single women, Janet (Joyce DeWitt) and Chrissy (Suzanne Somers). Because their impotent landlord (Norman Fell) didn’t want people of the opposite sex living with each other unless they were married, Jack pretended to be gay. Every episode centered around a misunderstanding, though it was Suzanne Somers’s performance as the perpetually bouncy and braless Chrissy Snow that made the show a hit. The show fell apart when Somers asked for more money, Ritter and DeWitt got angry with her, and the studio bosses lied to everyone. Today, the show is legendary as an example of how backstage tension can end even a popular series.

Behind The Camera: The Unauthorized Story of Three’s Company attempts to dramatize the success and eventual downfall of Three’s Company. Joyce DeWitt appears at the beginning and the end to talk about how important she thinks the show was. In the movie, she is played by Melanie Paxson. John Ritter is played by a lookalike actor named Bret Anthony while an actress named Jud Taylor plays Somers. Brian Dennehy plays ABC president Fred Silverman and other executives are played by Daniel Roebuck, Wallace Langham, Gary Hudson, and Christopher Shyer. The movie recreates all of the drama that went on during Three’s Company without offering much insight or really anything new to the story. Even though the movie was co-produced and hosted by Joyce DeWitt, Suzanne Somers is really the only sympathetic character in the movie. DeWitt comes across as being jealous while Anthony plays John Ritter as being a bland nonentity who chooses his own success over being honest with his costars. The network executives are more interesting, just because watching them provides a glimpse into how real producers and showrunners picture themselves. They just wanted to make a good show about a sex addict pretending to be gay so he could live with two attractive, single women but the agents and the network presidents just keep getting in the way! Won’t someone please think of the mid-level network executives?

Bland though this recreation was, it was enough of a rating hits that NBC went on to produce several more Behind The Camera films. Three’s Company was only the beginning.