The Secret: Dare To Dream (2020)
Who hasn’t seen copies of The Secret around Target or Walmart, or, well, everywhere? Its title lends itself to secrecy in more ways than one—when the book came out in 2006 it was as if everyone was talking about it but not really saying anything, at least not at first, but we’ll get to that. The Secret’s adjacent feature film, The Secret: Dare To Dream doesn’t say that much about the book, either, but tries to show some of its ideas in action.
Miranda Wells is a widow with three children trying to make it in New Orleans. She seems to be doing all right, dating Tucker, her restaurateur boss and outbidding other restaurants for the best and sometimes latest catches of fish. She either can’t cook or doesn’t have time, relying on microwaved chicken nuggets. She’s also broke. Her checks bounce, expenses keep piling up, and her life is falling apart. Still, Miranda is a good mother and does her best.
Right before a hurricane is supposed to drop into town, Miranda accidentally rear-ends a pickup truck belonging to visiting Vanderbilt professor, Bray, and knocks off her van’s bumper. Well, she also gives it a few swift kicks, but either way, Bray’s completely understanding about the whole thing, and even offers to fix her bumper for her free of charge.
When a tree falls into the Wells kitchen during the hurricane, Bray fixes it for only five hundred dollars. Miranda is suspicious but she can’t help but like Bray, and the kids are instantly enamored with him. Tucker, who comes around for a visit while Bray is working, is suspicious, but instead of putting up his dukes or getting verbally defensive, he proposes to Miranda and offers her a brand-new SUV. Yeah, this all happens very quickly.
So where is The Secret angle of Dare To Dream? It reads like the Think System in The Music Man, as its main thrust is positivity and desire: If you wish for something happily enough, it will come. Like when Miranda’s kids start dreaming out loud about an all-meat pizza with stuffed crust, and lo and behold a delivery guy shows up with two pizzas paid for by Tucker, who threw in a hefty tip because of the weather.
I’ll be honest, I’m not a big fan of The Secret as a philosophy—while there’s nothing wrong with positive thinking, it’s very New Age-y and a little confusing. Naturally, The Secret has been criticized by both religious people and non-religious people alike for its many irregularities.
It’s pretty obvious why its ideas aren’t more overtly brought out in the film, because then people would have complained about the film being an infomercial, but as it is, we get an incredibly cliched, incredibly cheesy romance story. Sure, it has a lot of sweet moments, but I kept hoping for something a bit more fun (It would have been great if Bray was a male Mary Poppins, for one thing). Who knows, maybe I didn’t wish hard enough.
The film was supposed to be released theatrically but was shifted to video-on-demand because of the coronavirus. It’s pretty doubtful if anyone would have noticed either way—self-help books just don’t make good movies. In its favor, though, Dare To Dream will offend absolutely no one and may even bring a smile or two.
The Secret: Dare To Dream is currently streaming on Amazon Prime. Rated PG.
My grade: C+
Principal cast: Katie Holmes, Josh Lucas, Jerry O’Connell, Celia Weston
Directed by Andy Tennant
Written by Beckah Brunstetter, Andy Tennant, Rick Parks, Rhonda Byrne (based on her book, The Secret)