Little Secrets

Infobox_Film
name = Little Secrets


imdb_id = 0296845
writer = Jessica Barondes
starring = Evan Rachel Wood
Michael Angarano
David Gallagher
Catlin EJ Meyer
Vivica A. Fox
director = Blair Treu
producer = Jessica Barondes
Don Schain
Blair Treu
distributor = TriStar Pictures
IDP Distribution
released = October 2001
runtime = 96 minutes
language = English
music = Sam Cardon
awards = 2 wins out of 3 nominations
budget = $2,500,000 USD

"Little Secrets" is an independent film starring Evan Rachel Wood, Michael Angarano and David Gallagher. It premiered in the Heartland Film Festival in October 2001, and made its limited theatrical release on 23 August 2002.

ynopsis

An aspiring 14-year-old concert violinist named Emily Lindstrom (played by Wood) spends her summer practicing for an audition to get into the prestigious San Francisco Youth Orchestra while her friends go off to camp. She also runs a secret-keeping business, in which other children give her fifty cents to tell her a secret, which she promises to keep; this is a talent that she is normally very good at. Meanwhile, her parents are expecting another child and seem to care more about it than Emily.

New neighbors move in next door, including Philip (played by Angarano). During the move, he accidentally breaks a valued chess piece and is caught by Emily as he attempts to bury it in the front garden. Philip pays Emily fifty cents to keep his deed a secret, and to hide the piece in her treasure trunk (along with other broken property from her other clients, in paper bags labeled with their names).

When Philip decides to join Emily in an afternoon tea session using her family's expensive china, they accidentally break one of the teacups. Emily is faced with the challenge of keeping her own secret and having someone else know about it. Meanwhile, as Philip begins falling for Emily, his brother David enters the picture. David had previously been at to tennis camp, but was sent back home because he was allegedly drunk and was involved in a car accident. Phillip tells her this family secret in exchange that Emily tells him a secret about her greetings with her friends. Emily starts getting upset, and says that a person who drink drives will do it again before storming off. Emily then starts to lose her secret-keeping talent as she falls for David. David also begins falling for Emily, which makes Philip jealous.

During the baby shower, David tries to talk to Emily, where she reveals that she knows how he was expelled from tennis camp. After, Emily goes to get her violin from the roof and tumbles from the rooftop and breaks her neck, necessitating a trip to the hospital. While Emily is at the hospital, her mother gives birth to her sister. Everyone is by Emily's hospital bed except David, who is eavesdropping behind the curtain. Emily's friends ask if her sister looks like she did when she was a baby, and Emily reveals that she is adopted. Her birth parents were killed while they were driving in a car while she was 10 months old after being struck by a drunk driver, and considers it a miracle that she lived. The driver spent one year in prison and after being released barely a week, crashed into someone else's car and killed himself. Upon hearing this, David feels very guilty and understands why she despises him so much. After Emily is released from the hospital, she and Philip return all of the paper bags to her clients. To thank Philip, Emily kisses him on the cheek. Then David appears, and Emily kisses David on the lips.

The film made its TV premiere on the channel now known as Encore Wam on September 5, 2003. After the film premiered, Evan Rachel Wood, the star of the film, who also played Jessie Sammler on ABC's "Once and Again", told the story behind the movie in a 3-minute interview for WAM! entitled "Evan Rachel Wood on Little Secrets". That interview has Evan saying in the beginning, "I'm Evan Rachel Wood and I'm 15 and I play Emily in Little Secrets."

Little Secrets on Disney Channel

Disney Channel, which has aired films directed by Blair Treu including "Wish Upon a Star" and "The Paper Brigade", tried as many times to promote "Little Secrets" which was originally scheduled for Monday, April 4, 2005, but it actually made its free-TV premiere on Hallmark Channel on Saturday, April 15, 2006. It also aired on Hallmark Movie Channel as well. It is largest film that has ever preempted by Disney Channel, and one of the two non-Disney related films that got preempted before it even premiered, the other being "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants". "Little Secrets" or any Evan Rachel Wood material has not aired on Disney Channel as of today. But in a seminar held on July 11, 2008, it was announced that Disney Channel will start airing "Little Secrets". Once it becomes official in the U.S. by the end of the 2008, "Little Secrets" will be the first film featuring Evan Rachel Wood to air on Disney Channel. Now that "Little Secrets" is not a Disney Channel Original Movie, and is produced by Don Schain and written by Blair Treu, the film will take on a role of its own, and will share status with the other Don Schain-produced DCOMs.

External links

*imdb title|0296845