3 out of 5

Directed by: Nick Murphy

A stunning performance from James Nesbitt and a ridiculously macabrely fascinating true story can’t overcome a clunky structure.

Dentist – and devout Christian – Colin Howell (Nesbitt) is having an affair with Hazel (Genevieve O’Reilly).  The duo eventually get up to murdering their respective spouses, covering it up as a murder suicide.  Almost twenty years later and they’ve both, separately, remarried, their secret still buried, when Howell decides to confess all, as well as to some recent troubles with fraud and sexual assault.  This is a real story of, as the book upon which the show is based would tell it, a manipulative man – of himself, of others – who seemed to truly believe that what he was doing, at the time, was “God’s plan.”  And who could continually weave the narrative that way, up until he couldn’t.  But it proves to be too much for the show to handle effectively in four episodes, and so much of the more enduring emotional impact gets shortchanged for solid moments.

Nesbitt is riveting in the role, well cast to apply his nervy understatedness for Howell’s forceful, directing presence.  O’Reilly, as more of a hanger-on, doesn’t seemingly get as much to do, but her part to play more comes around in the final chapter, when she finds herself outed as caught under the same guilty web as Howell, and she struggles to make it work with what she’s made of her life by that point.  The chapters that focus on the most direct impact / fallout of these actions – the second episode’s murder, the fourth episode’s trial – are where The Secret has you glued to the screen, astounded that these people were able to wander so far afield.  But attempting to compact the elements that would’ve led to the affair and crime, in the first episode, comes across as TV shorthand, and the third episode’s flash-forward to new relationships for each seems almost hilariously rushed, when the real timeline has the couple staying together for a few years afterward.

But I’d say one of the main concepts – how frightening fervent faith can be – comes across well enough, most especially via Nesbitt’s “I’ve repented” vocalizations along the way (and a chilling one toward the end), without directly (or darkly comedically) maligning said faith.

True stories are hard to dramaticize as, after all, our lives don’t fit into neat episodic chunks.  The Secret stays afloat due to its astonishing details and a great core cast, but the 20 years of the story might be better served by the book.