The Time of Secrets

The Time of Secrets (Le Temps des secrets, 2022) is a French family drama from director Christophe Barratier, and you can watch online on iFILM. Provence, summer 1905. Twelve-year-old Marcel heads off for one last holiday in the hills he loves more than anywhere before high school begins.

This summer turns out unlike the ones before it. Between hikes, hunting trips and boyish schemes, Marcel meets feelings he can no longer shrug off as a child — a pull toward a girl, the buried secrets of the grown-ups around him, the sense that carefree days are running out. The film draws on the memoir of Marcel Pagnol, the writer and filmmaker who became the first cinema figure elected to the Académie française.

Barratier, who made The Chorus, keeps the same warm, unhurried register here: sunlit Provence, a gentle pace, coming of age without the melodrama. It suits a quiet family evening and anyone fond of the French countryside and stories about a childhood that's gone for good. Stream The Time of Secrets (2022) online on iFILM.