Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Cast: Chiwetel Ejiofor, Nicole Kidman, Julia Roberts, Dean Norris, Alfred Molina, Joe Cole, Michael Kelly, Zoe Graham, Patrick Davis, Eileen Fogarty, Lyndon Smith, Kim Yarborough, Mark Famiglietti, Amir Malaklou, Niko Nicotera, Dennis Keiffer, Don Harvey.
Remaking a film for an English speaking audience can be problematic, it can detract from the spectacle that originally played out or even lose some of the drive that first made the story a hit, thankfully the producers behind Secret In Their Eyes have kept the tension and effort of concentration in place and the final pay off is one that still catches the audience unawares.
Remaking El Secreto de Sus Ojos is one thing but to bring four actors of absolute wealth and charm into the film and have them feted and despised for all the same reasons takes cunning and wit and in Billy Ray’s screenplay with Chiwetel Ejiofor, Nicole Kidman, Julia Roberts and Alfred Molina bringing great quality to the screen but also a sadness that is hard to replicate, that is difficult to reproduce within human emotion and it is a intimate reproduction that Julia Roberts especially handles with care and a certain kind of truth in her performance.
Losing a child, especially in violence and desecration is one that kills the spirit, it is the hardest of losses to bear and yet retribution, vengeance, even the balancing of nature is an anathema in which to bear with solemn refusal; nothing can ever bring back a child from such brutality and yet to contemplate anything other than justice is to sink into an abyss to which the soul dies.
It is not so much the way the film is shot or even produced, the situation and the scenes almost a stock in trade nod to the Noir genre, it is in the language, the use of scripted words and the gestures that carry them that make them stand out. The softness and anger rolled up into one sensible dialogue makes Secret In Their Eyes stand out beyond the normal quarry of police and investigation dramas.
A very good film, the back and forth nature of the investigation at hand one that fits well into the modern psyche and the feeling of displaced intimacy one that is hard, but gratifying, to handle. Secret In Their Eyes is a generous film which doesn’t struggle to be enjoyed.
Ian D. Hall