Film Review: A Secret Love
by Isabella Zollner
Recently, A Secret Love hit Netflix like a storm. This documentary, directed by Chris Bolan, follows the lives of Terry Donahue and Pat Henschel, a closeted lesbian couple of more than sixty-five years.
When this documentary was filmed, Terry and Pat had just come out to their family and friends. Terry Donahue’s great nephew and director of A Secret Love, Chris Bolan, was so moved by his aunts’ story that he knew he had to tell it. Chris Bolan explains that after gathering the family, his aunts told the story of their lives beginning in the 1940s. In an interview on Distractify, Chris Bolan said
“I was just absolutely amazed, and at the end of it they started dancing in the living room together.”
This is a documentary about family and the perseverance of love in the face of all else. Not only does A Secret Love tell a beautiful and salient story of LGBTQIA+ culture, it humanizes its characters. Terry and Pat are a couple you will quickly fall in love with as you watch them struggle with Terry’s health and the knowledge they will be selling their home of 20 years. A Secret Love will have you crying and laughing right along with its lovely stars.
The documentary begins with Terry and Pat sharing their childhood stories until they meet in Moose Jaw, Canada. That year, Terry was recruited to play baseball in one of America’s first professional female baseball leagues. The film, A League of Our Own, tells the story of Terry’s time as a catcher for the Peoria Redwings. Terry met Pat during Terry’s off season and footage found during Terry’s off seasons shows the couple going to the beach, spending time with family, and partying with friends. The videos also show that Terry and Pat hid their relationship from their friends and family. One of the ways Terry and Pat guarded their secret was discovered by Terry’s niece Diana. In the basement, Diana finds boxes of love poems between Pat and Terry. It is a heartbreaking moment when Diana asks why the bottoms of all the love poems are torn off. Pat reveals that she and Terry would rip off the signatures at the bottom of the love notes so that no one could figure out who wrote them.
Over and over, director Chris Bolan captures the fear that Terry and Pat lived with everyday. In an interview Pat describes seeing a newspaper with her and Terry printed on the front page. This kind of fame terrified them. If someone were to see them together and recognize them it could lead to disaster. Even having their faces in the newspaper for baseball publicity jeopardized their careful secrecy. Sixty years later, they broke that secrecy.
The second part of the documentary describes Terry and Pat’s newfound freedom. They no longer have to hide and their little shows of affection reveal how deeply in love with each other Terry and Pat are. The most touching of those moments is when Terry and Pat finally decide to get married. In 2015 Terry and Pat were married after 70 years of dating. The newlyweds had a difficult choice to face as Terry’s health decreased. Should they leave their close group of friends, the first people they came out to, in order to move to a nursing home in Canada? After much discussion, Terry and Pat moved back to Canada, to a nursing home in Edmonton so that they could be close to family in Terry’s final years.
The conclusion to the beautifully told love story of Terry and Pat in A Secret Love will have any viewer in tears. The credits roll and inform audiences that Terry passed away in March 2019 as Terry says,
“No regrets. I’d do it all over again. I think love is love, and that’s the most important thing.”
It is an appropriately touching ending for such a magnificent documentary. Anyone looking for a great way to spend an hour and a half should turn on Netflix and get ready to watch the film of their lifetime.
About the Author:
After being subjected to homophobic harassment in the classroom, Isabella decided to try and use her writing to encourage others to stand up for each other and themselves. Isabella is a high school student in Lafayette, IN.
