The Secret (2007 film)

The beginning of the film reveals the strained relationship between Hannah (Lili Taylor) and her teenaged daughter Samantha (Olivia Thirlby). Hannah has been the primary disciplinarian as opposed to Samantha's permissive father Ben (David Duchovny). During a heated argument in the car with Samantha, Hannah's focus is momentarily diverted from the road, causing a head-on collision with an oncoming truck. Mother and daughter are taken to the hospital's ICU, both of them code, and Hannah dies. Unknown to Ben, Hannah's spirit migrates to Samantha's body, but he eventually believes it when 'Samantha' tells him things that only his wife would know.

Both resolve that Hannah continue to live as Samantha, for if and when she returns. Living in Samantha's body, Hannah endeavors to maintain an emotional relationship with her husband while struggling with the often confusing impulses of a teenager. Ben and Hannah come perilously close to being intimate as man and wife. Hannah begins to learn a lot about the previously unknown (to her) life her daughter was living, which helps her understand how harrowing a teen's life can be. She faces demanding schoolwork that she finds largely unfamiliar; a couple of decades have passed since her own graduation. And she discovers that Samantha's life has been a challenge to meet her parents' expectations for academic excellence and behavior, all while being overwhelmed by adolescent hormones and a confused sense of self. This includes the discovery that Samantha was having sex with multiple partners. Hannah struggles to keep her grip; and Ben's possessiveness toward his wife's soul in his daughter's body threatens to completely overwhelm both of their lives, with nearly disastrous results. Hannah also starts to rediscover her own lost dreams when teachers praise her talent as a photographer.

Hannah's conflict with Ben comes to a head when she escapes through a bedroom window and goes to Samantha's friends, who persuade her to try Ketamine, causing Hannah to hallucinate and see herself dead, as Hannah. When Ben tracks her down and takes her home, Samantha briefly reappears then disappears again, over the traumatic realization that her mother is dead. Ben and Hannah both realize that Samantha is coming back. Hannah makes final preparations for Samantha's return, and makes a video explaining to Samantha what happened. After Samantha returns to her body, she belatedly sees how much she really did love her mother. The final scene shows a radically changed Samantha, who now has adopted her mother's handwriting.

There is an alternate interpretation of the ending of this movie. That is that Sam, the daughter, passes away in the hospital never to return to her body. Hannah, the mother, is transferred to her daughter's body and is trapped there for the rest of her life. Hannah realizes that she can not have an adult romantic relationship with her husband while she is inside their daughter's body. So she pretends to sense that their daughter, Sam, will be returning to her body soon. Then she kindly pretends to be Sam for the rest of her life in order to allow her husband and her to move on. Hannah will stay in her husband's life as his daughter for the rest of their lives. They will care and love each other in a father and daughter relationship but they will both move on into adult romantic relationships with other people. The evidence for this alternative interpretation of the movie is that when Hannah goes back to school as Sam her English teacher says that her handwriting has change. Hannah makes up the excuse that she did changed her handwriting because she felt her old handwriting was childish. This implies that Hannah can not write like Sam because they are two different people. At the end of the movie Sam's friend Taylor says your handwriting has changed and Sam says she has adopted her mother's handwriting. Which can be taken as Sam has really adopted her mother's handwriting or it can imply that Hannah is still pretending to be Sam and the movie is showing this twist in the final scene. Taylor mentions that she must miss her Mom and Sam agrees but says, "That she will always be a part of me", as the movie ends. Which if she is Hannah pretending to be Sam for the rest of her life is true. Implying that Hannah will pretend to be Sam for the rest of her life, bringing back the inner symmetry of the movie title...The Secret.

• The Secret at IMDb
• The Secret at Rotten Tomatoes
• The Secret at AllMovie