Cold tar creeping uphill moves faster than most of writer/director Mike Leigh's character-driven films. That's not to say that his movies aren't infinitely more fascinating than tar, however.

"Secrets & Lies," his newest film work, moves even more slowly than usual. In fact, it moves very much like its opening shot - outside of a funeral, which Leigh slowly circles inward before closing on the action. But that's necessary to ensure that his full cast of characters, as well as the melodramatic situations, get adequate development.

In the drama, Leigh explores the devastating consequences lies and secrets can have on a person's life, and on others' lives. And on a smaller scale, the film also deals with the loss of a parent.

Hortense (Marianne Jean-Bap-tiste), a young black optometrist living in London, has just lost her mother, while Cynthia (Brenda Blethyn, from "A River Runs Through It") is a 40ish factory worker and single mother who has never gotten over the death of her parents.

Cynthia, who's still living in the past, is also troubled because her foul-mouthed, streetsweeping daughter, Roxanne (Claire Rush-brook), is more fond of her Uncle Maurice (Timothy Spall) and Aunt Monica (Phyllis Logan) than she is of her own mother.

Of course, Hortense and Cynthia's paths are bound to cross. It turns out that Hortense is actually Cynthia's daughter from a youthful indiscretion. She gave up the girl for adoption, a fact that only Maurice and Monica share with her.

And though Cynthia and Hor-tense's eventual reunion is joyful - after some initial discomfort and disbelief, though, since Cynthia is white - it's bound to have dire consequences to Cynthia and Roxanne's already shaky mother-daughter relationship.

Fortunately, not all of this is played somberly, although Blethyn sheds more tears than you'll see at a typical funeral. In fact, there are some really humorous bits as Maurice, a photographer, attempts to make his subjects smile or laugh, not always successfully.

On the other hand, there are some extraneous scenes - like one in which the former owner of Maurice's photo shop confronts him, and two needlessly vulgar ones in which characters talk while one of them is in the bathroom! - that drain the film of some of its life.

But the film is blessed with Blethyn, who won the best actress award at this year's Cannes Film Festival. She alternates between depression and joy, all of it believably, as her character has to face up to the choices she's made in life, as well as the secrets she has kept hidden.

It also benefits greatly from having Jean-Baptiste, who lights up the screen with her smile, as well as Spall ("White Hunter Black Heart"), who provides the film with its strength, as Maurice is forced to bring all the feuding sides together at the end.

With the film coming in at nearly 21/2 hours, things had better be realistic, and, to his credit, Leigh's screenplay has a real ring of truth to it - especially in one effective scene where Hortense attempts to get information from an adoption agency official.

"Secrets & Lies" is rated R for profanity, some vulgarity, implied sex and brief violence.