- Starring
- Terry Donahue, Pat Henschel, Diana Bolan
- Writers
- Chris Bolan, Alexa L. Fogel, Brendan Mason
- Director
- Chris Bolan
- Rating
- TV-MA
- Running Time
- 82 minutes
- Release Date
- April 29th, 2020 (Netflix)
Overall Score
Rating Summary
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Love stories of all shapes and sizes in film have always been a big draw. They elicit emotion as audiences connect with their stories on a deep level. A Secret Love is Netflix’s latest documentary feature based on a very true love story that definitely lives up to the film’s title but fails to offer much in terms of substance over its relatively short running time, clocking in at 80+ minutes. While the film is certainly adorable and somewhat gripping, it lacks enough depth to do its two subjects justice. The story follows the 65+ year journey of a pair of women, Pat Henschel and former pro baseball player Terry Donahue. At the time of their meeting, the world was arguably not so accepting of a relationship between two women. Serving as a story of their lives, we see them from their early days living in Saskatchewan, Canada to today as a pair of seniors who were nowhere near who they used to be, coming to terms with their age while trying to have a relationship with their family.
Though A Secret Love features a few compelling moments throughout, the worst part of the film was its short running time which meant glossing over some of the heavier issues and bigger moments in Henschel and Donahue’s lives. What we do get may not be new but despite this, it is hard to deny that these two older ladies are extremely adorable and it is extremely evident that they love each other. It was just a shame that they we didn’t get more of that. Nevertheless, the film is still well put together with some decent archival footage and editing. However, it should have given us more of a reason to care.
In the end, A Secret Love is an adorable documentary with a love story that is sure to pull on the heartstrings though either way, it will be done before you know it.
*still courtesy of Netflix*
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The EIC of the coincidentally-named keithlovesmovies.com. A Canadian who prefers to get out of the cold and into the warmth of a movie theatre.
