The Secret in Their Eyes (2009)
Directed by Juan José Campanella
Hoping to put to rest years of unease concerning a past case, retired criminal investigator Benjamín begins writing a novel based on the unsolved mystery of a newlywed’s rape and murder. With the help of a former colleague, judge Irene, he attempts to make sense of the past.
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Campanella has compared his favoured actor to both Tom Hanks and Henry Fonda, and the latter’s upright Juror 8 in 12 Angry Men (1957) is certainly a reference point in Darín’s depiction of working-class outsider Benjamín, obsessed by the unsolved murder of a newly married schoolteacher and trapped within the labyrinthine workings of the Argentine judicial system.
Like the eyes of Marion Crane who is lying on the bathroom floor in Psycho (1960), they often are unseeing.
The film tells its story through two parallel time periods, with the events from 25 years ago presented as a taut investigative procedural equal to David Fincher’s Zodiac , and those in the present a redemptive drama with a high emotional payoff.
In his latest offering, director Juan Jose Campanella - whose previous work includes the 2002 Oscar nominee Son Of The Bride - has decided to focus on the human drama rather than the mystery.
Magnificently composed and smoothly paced, “The Secret in Their Eyes” is a career achievement for Campanella, who previously helmed such pictures as “Son of the Bride” and “Love Walked In.”
And Campanella’s sole previous nomination was for “Son of the Bride” (2001) — a mildly enjoyable bit of fluff that deservedly lost to Bosnia-Herzegovina's “No Man’s Land.”
Writer/ Director Juan José Campanella, previously Oscar nominated for his feel-good comedy Son Of The Bride in 2001, shows he hasn’t lost his touch with this vastly different and involving story that spans a quarter of century and is partially played out in flashbacks.
Campanella does basically two things, as far as I can tell: direct Argentina's Oscar nominees (he's only made one other feature since 2001's Foreign Film nominee Son of the Bride , the last time that country had a dog in the race), and direct episodes of American procedurals, most notably 17 episodes of Law and Order: SVU .
The film’s director, Juan José Campanella, was previously a foreign language Oscar nominee for 2001’s “Son of the Bride” and has balanced directing films in Argentina with work on U.S. TV series including “House,” “Law & Order: SVU” and even “30 Rock.”
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A mystery that, like The Silence of the Lambs or Chinatown, can be enjoyed purely for the whodunit, but is even more rewarding for the personal journey it takes its investigators on to solve the riddle.
The sleekly vulpine Ricardo Darin (“Nine Queens,” “The Aura”) stars as Esposito, a federal agent in Buenos Aires now retired.
The highly acclaimed Argentinean actor Ricardo Darín (Nine Queens, The Dancer and the Thief) portrays Espósito beautifully as a man who is inspired by the love of the victim’s husband to pursue the brutal case he has been handed but at the same time cannot act on his own feelings for his former colleague and now boss.