Little Secrets 2002

Emily, Evan Rachel Wood, is a 14-year-old aspiring concert violinist in Salt Lake City. Her summer revolves around rigorous practice for a crucial audition that could secure her a spot in the local youth symphony orchestra. Beyond the strings, she runs a small, neighborhood “secret-keeping booth,” where she charges fifty cents for advice as kids lay bare their personal secrets. Yet Emily herself guards a secret of her own: she is adopted. At home, her parents are buzzing with news of a new baby on the way, a milestone that fills the house with excitement and, in Emily’s eyes, a twinge of jealousy.

Next door, 12-year-old Philip, Michael Angarano, arrives with his family. While helping unpack, he accidentally breaks a valuable chess piece and is caught trying to hide it in the garden. Emily, who likes to strike first by charging a fee to keep secrets, is quick to turn this incident into a bargaining chip: a fifty-cent payment to keep the mishap from his parents. Despite the rocky start, Philip’s curiosity about her violin performance nudges him toward her world. Emily invites him over for afternoon tea, and a shared sense of secrecy forges a tentative bond after they both confess small transgressions—two expensive china teacups broken in the same afternoon.

Philip’s older brother, 15-year-old David, David Gallagher, returns home early from tennis camp, having been involved in a car incident after alcohol was involved. Philip doesn’t see it as a big deal—he isn’t the driver and no one seems severely harmed—but the other driver was injured. In a bid to understand Emily’s deeper secrets, he trades Emily a glimpse into his own family’s life by revealing what he knows about David’s secret in exchange for learning the meaning behind her secret greeting with her best friends. Emily’s reaction is sharp and uneasy, and the tension between the siblings grows as David then tries to draw closer to Emily, while she remains guarded.

As the days unfold, David’s attempt at closeness collides with Philip’s jealousy: the younger boy begins stealing Emily’s clients to grow his own secret-keeping business. Emily, meanwhile, finds her own power strained as the advice she dispenses to others starts to blow back in unexpected and personal ways, slowly eroding her focus on the violin and threatening the audition she has worked toward all summer.

At a family moment—Emily’s mother’s baby shower—the pressure peaks. David presses for more honesty, and Emily finally reveals that she knows David’s secret. Confrontations follow: David confronts Philip, and Philip, in turn, reveals to Emily’s closest friends that she broke their secret greeting pact. After a significant heart-to-heart with her violin teacher Pauline, Emily resolves to stop keeping secrets. She climbs to retrieve her violin left on the roof, only to lose her balance and suffer a fall that lands her in the hospital and makes her miss the audition.

The turn of events becomes a turning point for the whole family. David and Philip attend the audition on Emily’s behalf, presenting a tape of her playing to the panel and securing her a place in the youth orchestra despite everything she has endured. While Emily recovers, her mother gives birth to a new sister, Grace, and Emily names her adopted status openly, explaining that her birth parents were killed by a drunk driver when she was an infant. David finally understands why Emily was so upset, promising never to violate that trust again, and he shares a poignant lesson: if you want to be close to someone, you cannot keep secrets from them.

With maturity and reconciliation, Emily and Philip reaffirm their friendship, and he helps her shut down the secret-keeping booth for good. He offers his blessing on the friendship she now shares with her brother, and the film closes with a kiss between Emily and David as they move forward together. The neighborhood scenes glow with new light as Emily receives a new violin and looks out over the street, signaling a hopeful new chapter built on honesty, connection, and the music that first drew her heart to the stage.