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Little Secrets | 2002 | PG | - 3.2.1

A gifted 14-year-old violinist (Evan Rachel Wood) has given up summer camp with her friends in order to get ready for her audition with a prestigious youth orchestra. She also keeps busy as the neighborhood "secret keeper": for a nominal 50 cent fee she'll keep any child's secret, including incriminating evidence such as broken china, bric-a-brac, etc. Eventually, however, she discovers that keeping secrets can be much costlier. Also with Michael Angarano, Vivica A. Fox, David Gallagher and Danielle Chuchran. [1:47]

SEX/NUDITY 3 - A 15-year-old young man and a 14-year-old young woman kiss. A young woman kisses a young man on the cheek. A young man touches a young woman's hair, and a young man moves closer to a young woman while they talk and she pulls away. A young man and a young woman look at each other admiringly and flirt. Two young men talk about a young woman being pretty. A young woman looks longingly at a poster of a man several times (the poster appears to have a lipstick outline of a kiss on it). A 9-year-old girl writes romantic e-mails to an older boy pretending that she is 14, and she's dressed in jewelry and grown-up make-up. A young man talks to a young woman via videotape, and makes a reference to her "developing" and throws her kisses. Young women wear mini-skirts and some tight-fitting outfits.

VIOLENCE/GORE 2 - A young woman falls from a rooftop and lands on the ground below; we see her neck in a brace as she is wheeled away on a stretcher and we see a bandaged cut on her forehead later. We hear that a man and a woman were hit head-on by a drunk driver and were killed; their baby in the back seat of the car was spared. There are a few conversations about young men stealing a car, driving after having beer (while impairment is implied, one character argues that they were not intoxicated) and hitting another car head-on and injuring the driver of the other car. A young man grabs another young man by the shoulder, drags him away from a party and yells at him. A young woman becomes overwhelmed (she looks unnerved) by the sound of crying babies while in a store. A young woman and her parents argue a few times. A woman goes into labor and we see her pushing during delivery and hear her moaning; we see the baby at the time of delivery covered with some goo. A young man makes the gesture for gagging (finger in his mouth). We see a sonogram image of a baby in the womb and see the mother's bare abdomen during the test. We see lots of broken crockery and other fragile items.

LANGUAGE 1 - 1 mild obscenity, 2 mild anatomical terms, 2 biological references and some name-calling.

SUBSTANCE USE - A man and woman open a bottle of champagne, but we don't see them drinking it.

DISCUSSION TOPICS - Secrets, trust, truth, family, adoption, aspirations, having babies later in life, quitting, shoplifting, credentials, competition.

MESSAGE - Keeping secrets about yourself and others will lead to trouble.

CAVEATS

Be aware that while we do our best to avoid spoilers it is impossible to disguise all details and some may reveal crucial plot elements.

We've gone through several editorial changes since we started covering films in 1992 and older reviews are not as complete & accurate as recent ones; we plan to revisit and correct older reviews as resources and time permits.

Our ratings and reviews are based on the theatrically-released versions of films; on video there are often Unrated, Special, Director's Cut or Extended versions, (usually accurately labelled but sometimes mislabeled) released that contain additional content, which we did not review.


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