Common Sense Media Review
By Barbara Shulgasser-Parker
,
based on child development research. How do we rate?
Docu about women forced to hide relationship for 70 years.
Parents Need to Know
Why Age 13+?
Any Positive Content?
Where to Watch
Videos and Photos
A Secret Love
What's the Story?
Pat Henschel and Terry Donahue, a professional baseball player, fell in love in 1947 and, as depicted in A SECRET LOVE, the two shared their lives for the next 72 years. During most of those years they lived without letting family or the world know they were a couple. Director Chris Bolan shares family photos and home movies of his two great aunts, as well as footage of Terry playing in the All-American Girls Baseball League (made famous by the film A League of Their Own). The pair recall how important it was to "be careful," to never let their secret spill lest they be arrested for indecency. They display a touching devotion to each other and wrestle with illness and aging as family members try to move them to safer quarters. They finally wed, after around 70 years as a couple, surrounded by family and friends.
Is It Any Good?
Director Chris Bolan spent seven years making this film, and it was worth every minute of his time. Bolan lovingly trains the camera on his great aunts Terry and Pat, two strong, independent women who managed to nurture their love under wraps in the face of an inhospitable and judgmental society. Bolan weaves in the hazards they faced in the 1940s, '50s, '60s, and later, using photographs and home movies. He interviews devoted family members who, though shocked, instantly accepted the decades-late announcement that Terry and Pat had lived as a couple for years. One niece accepts the gay announcement but wishes they'd get married immediately to avoid "living in sin," demonstrating how views, even among the religious, have evolved over the years.
A Secret Love also examines the utter familiarity of their plight as they age. Loving family members try to get them help, try to help them move to more manageable quarters, and those actions are met with resistance. Family love and support are strong, and there's no sense that it's put on for the cameras. The movie drips of love going in all directions, and that fact makes this feel like an instructional video on how to be in the world. Someone observes to Terry that she broke the rules her whole life, and she replies, "Yes. That's why I'm happy."
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about why the LGBTQ community has faced discrimination over the years. How and why have attitudes changed? What impact do movies like A Secret Life have?
What aspects of Terry's and Pat's life together show the universality of the issues they face?
What are some ways we as a society make inclusiveness a way of life?
Movie Details
- On DVD or streaming : April 29, 2020
- Director : Chris Bolan
- Studio : Netflix
- Genre : Documentary
- Run time : 83 minutes
- MPAA rating :
- Last updated : January 14, 2022
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