# Secret Smile (2005)

> After Miranda Cotton ends an affair with the manipulative Brendan Block, she and her family become the targets of his revenge.

Canonical page: https://ember.film/tv/106617

## Facts

- Seasons: 1
- Episodes: 2
- Episode runtime: 47 min
- Status: Ended
- Genres: thriller, drama
- Network: ITV1
- Cast: David Tennant, Kate Ashfield, Claire Goose, Badria Timimi, Caroline Loncq
- TMDB rating: 6.8/10
- IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0462520/

## Ember's analysis

- Pacing: brisk
- Intensity: strong
- Complexity: accessible
- Violence: moderate
- Tone: tense, claustrophobic, harrowing, suspenseful

## Synopsis

Secret Smile (2005) is a British two-part psychological thriller miniseries broadcast on ITV1. David Tennant plays Brendan, a manipulative man whose affair with Miranda Cotton (Kate Ashfield) ends badly, and Kate Ashfield's Miranda and Claire Goose's Kerry Cotton sit at the center of the story as the family he targets. After Miranda breaks off the relationship, Brendan begins a depraved revenge scheme that turns the Cotton household into a place of suspicion and fear. Detective Inspector Jean Holmes (Badria Timimi) is drawn into the case as the threat tightens around the family. The engine of the drama is the slow erosion of ordinary domestic routines, as each small intrusion makes the women doubt who they can trust. Told in just two episodes of roughly forty-seven minutes each, the miniseries builds a tight, compressed sense of dread rather than a sprawling mystery. Its tone is tense, claustrophobic and emotionally harrowing, grounded in a contemporary British setting. Fans of Fatal Attraction and Broadchurch will find the same mix of domestic menace and psychological suspense here.

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