Secrets and Lies

You think you know someone, and then out of the blue you learn something new about them that makes you rethink everything. It's unsettling, to say the very least. This happened to me last weekend when my husband of 32 years confessed that he "doesn't really like" Meryl Streep.

In fact, he divulged further that he actually dislikes her, going into vivid detail about all the reasons why this is so. His amazing revelation came to light after we watched the 2008 film Doubt on Netflix together Saturday night.

It was my second viewing in as many days as I had first watched it when Mitch was out of town, then wanted him to see it so watched it again with him. In it Streep plays a bitchy, mean, borderline evil nun who carries on a seething vendetta against a gay priest, played by Phillip Seymor Hoffman. Their respective roles won both actors an Academy Award nomination.

As the film ended, I marveled aloud at how Streep, considered to be America's greatest living actress (nominated for the Academy Award 21 times, winning it three times) could transform herself into any role and be thoroughly convincing. It was then that Mitch shrugged and said, "I never really liked her."

Having witnessed Mitch enjoying so many of her movies, or at least seeming to, I am still in shock. How did I never know this about him? What else is he hiding?