A Secret Love (2020)
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A Secret Love Movie Review
A Secret Love is a 2020 documentary film directed by Chris Boban and starring Terry Donahue and Pat Henschel. It’s one of the best documentaries of the year.
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“No regrets. I’d do it all over again.
I think love is love and that’s the most important thing“
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A former All-American Girls Professional Baseball League player and her partner, Terry Donahue and Pat Henschel, ran a successful interior decorating business, while keeping their lesbian relationship a secret from their families for almost seven decades. This is the type of story that is perfect for a documentary, but also ripe for live-action filmmaking, and I would love to see that happen in the future.
When it comes to LGBT history, most young people don’t respect the elders, but this movie sheds necessary light into the plight of older generations and just how important their suffering was for today’s freer world in terms of human rights. This is a story that is unabashedly romantic and pure cinema magic, something that you would think never happened, but all of it was real, and that authenticity factor is the film’s biggest asset.
Terry and Pat are both wonderful. One is more popular than the other of course, but still their relationship is just incredibly inspirational for anybody, not just people in this community. They continued to brave years and decades of prejudice and they continued to hide for decades. It’s a story of just how resilient eternal love is and how some “forbidden” couples would stop at nothing to make their dream come true.
A Secret Love is just a swell documentary overall. The usage of the titular song by Doris Day in the opening credits moved me as I adore that song and it was just a perfect fit for the theme of this movie. The film is beautifully edited and paced as it flies by how engaging it is. It’s rather intimate for better and for worse as it could have been more insightful in regards to the entire LGBT plight during the twentieth century, but the central relationship is beautifully showcased and their sweet dynamic is wonderful to witness. The archival footage is stunning and the movie acts as such a powerful time capsule and a great reminder of how much things have changed in recent history.
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