Common Sense Media Review
By Barbara Shulgasser-Parker
,
based on child development research. How do we rate?
Amnesia wipes away a woman's troubled past; violence.
Parents Need to Know
Why Age 13+?
Any Positive Content?
Where to Watch
Videos and Photos
The Secret Woman
Parent and Kid Reviews
What's the Story?
An arresting start launches THE SECRET WOMAN. Someone is being chased and leaps off a high bridge to escape. Two years later, Louise (Natalie Wolfsberg Madueno), that terrified woman, is living a serene, Norwegian island life, running a sweet café with her fiancé, a writer named Joachim (Pal Sverre Hagen). She suffers from amnesia and her past is blank to her until someone recognizes her. With the help of the ever-researching Joachim, police records, and a DNA test, she learns she is Helene, the Danish heiress to a major shipping company. She left behind Edmund (Claes Bang), a seemingly loving husband and business partner, and their young son. As memories creep back into her consciousness, she learns she'd left a nasty mess behind.
Is It Any Good?
This thriller starts with all the old-fashioned promise of an Alfred Hitchcock thriller, then steadily goes downhill into camp and implausibility. As in Hitchcock's Notorious, a young woman finds herself married to a bad guy who loves her but seems unable to distinguish between intimidating control and caretaking. Although the director does a solid job of building menace and threat by slowly revealing the nature of certain characters, the set-up almost guarantees that the menace and threat are coming, so they aren't shocking once revealed.
And much of the continuing menace and threat owes to the actions Helene takes. We wonder why she'd move straight into Edmund's fortress-like lair. Why not meet for a coffee first? At least in Notorious, Ingrid Bergman had no choice but to move in— her job was to pretend to be happily married and to spy on her husband. Here, because things are plotted so awkwardly, it becomes necessary for the villain to explain everything that we and our heroine don't know and, oh, are there revelations! And, oh, are there actions to go with those revelations! It's a bang-up but overall disappointing finish.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about the use of amnesia as a narrative tool in movies. How does amnesia—the loss of one's memory of the past—serve as a delivery system for drama?
The movie has two beginnings, the first, a hint of the main character's past and, the second, a look at her present. How does that set up conflict to come?
Mystery movies often have to take a moment to explain things near the end, but when badly done, the explanations can bog down the action. How well or poorly did the movie perform on that task?
Movie Details
- On DVD or streaming : August 28, 2026
- Cast : Claes Bang , Natalie Madueno , Pål Sverre Hagen
- Director : Barbara Topsoe-Rothenborg
- Studio : Netflix
- Genre : Thriller
- Topics : Family Stories
- Run time : 119 minutes
- MPAA rating :
- Last updated : August 31, 2026
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