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The Secret in Their Eyes (2009)

Director: Juan José Campanella

Time Out rating

Average user rating

30 reviews

Movie review

From Time Out London

That this Argentine film won this year’s Best Foreign Language Oscar over ‘The White Ribbon’ and ‘A Prophet’ says more about the voters than the films. Essentially a grand, time-hopping police procedural of ‘Inspector Morse’ levels of ingenuity, souped up with some naff music, heavily filtered camerawork and a theme of romantic longing spanning 25 years, it’s a film of enormous pretension and not enough reward.

We move between 1974 and the late 1990s. In the film’s present, former prosecutor, grey-haired Benjamín (Ricardo Darín) is writing a novel inspired by a key episode in his career: the case, 25 years earlier, of the rape and murder of a beautiful young woman. This was an event which pitched go-getting, principled Benjamin against judicial corruption (a symptom, we assume, of the military dictatorship) and cemented his unspoken feelings for his better-educated, better-bred new boss, Irene (Soledad Villamil), whose arrival in their wood-panelled offices coincides with this death.

The hunt for the killer takes up much of the two-hour-plus running time and is diverting enough, while the later penning of Benjamin’s book causes him to revisit both his friendship with Irene and the legacy of this case (calling for ample whitening of hair and dodgy make-up). It’s this cross-cutting and sense of time past and lost that’s meant to inspire a gradual embrace of ‘big’ themes, but the twin, shallow and pretty obvious ones that emerge are, firstly, that injustice breeds injustice and, secondly, that true love will triumph in the end. Cue orchestra!

Author: Dave Calhoun

Time Out London Issue 2086, 12 – 18 August, 2010

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User reviews of this film

Padraic said...

Posted on Aug 23 2011 00:17 It seems Dave Calhoun - normally one of the best film reviewers in the United Kingdom - has succumb to petty sarcasm over the fact that The Secret in Their Eyes beat Time Out's beloved Michael Haneke at the Academy Awards. The White Rabbit may have been "a masterpiece", to quote Calhoun's original review, but that doesn't detract from The Secret in Their Eyes' strengths as a film. Its music wasn't 'naff', but poignant and fitting, the camerawork not 'heavily filtered', but daring and skilful (particularly the extended single-take, one of the best in cinema). The Secret in Their Eyes deserves a much better review than this. And since when did Time Out care about the Oscars, anyway?

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ched said...

Posted on Jun 13 2011 10:21 TC's review is spot on. Many a flaw but the the film is mainly let down by two things. Firstly there's a total incosnsistency of tone- varying from brutal violence to lightweight humour without the deft touch necessary. Secondly, the plot is simple minded and founded on the flimisiest of assumptions (the whole "passion" speech leading to the stadium, he's looking at her pictures so he must be the killer!). The fact there's a bravura single take sequence in the middle only highlights how uncinematic the rest of the film is (and by cinematic I don't mean glossy cinematography). Oh and did I mention the cornball central love story which even has a sequence where a lover runs after a train (30 years after being spoofed in frickin Airplane!). Seriously, some people are so over awed by subtitles. If this film was American it would have been panned. Hammy, melodramatic nonsense which doesn't hold a candle to White Ribbon or A Prophet.

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shannon said...

Posted on Apr 20 2011 06:07 I am not young. I am not a film critic. I completely agree with the time out review. And...no one understood the plot "twist." In fact, it was very poorly directed. It seemed as though Morales killed his wife, per the protagonists recollections of the discussion and his return to his house, only to find, that he had imprisoned the "killer." Which is it? Might have been more intriguing if Morales had killed his wife for her passionate love affair with a former amour. Alas, no such twist. Either way, it was okay. It should not have one a ribbon, much less first place at all. Boludo!

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Max said...

Posted on Oct 04 2010 23:44 Another teenage reviewer from TIME getting it completely wrong. Go see it. It's possibly the best film you will have seen in 12 months.

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Jaycee said...

Posted on Oct 04 2010 19:00 This film had some plot elements that are quite commonplace but the execution, the atmosphere and the acting put it into a much higher league. The performances are wonderful - it's a shame Francella (who played the drunk, Sandoval, wasn't eligible for an oscar), and the growing power of the fascists was well-handled without being laboured. A very engrossing experience, and one of the best films of the past few years. I have been reading Time Out for over 20 years - I guess I am imagining it, but it seems the reviews used to be more reliably in tune with what cinemagoers thought,. Clearly every reviewer's opinion must be respected, but overall TO reviewers' opinions seem skewed away from a consensus in a way which makes it seems bloody-minded and precious, in a way that those of the more populist Empire Magazine, say, do not. Oh well, It's only the movies!

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Ed King said...

Posted on Sep 18 2010 00:16 Yet another embarrasingley off key `Timeout review which is completely out of touch with cinema goers. Getting really fed up with such inconsistent reviews in Timeout.

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Scopey said...

Posted on Sep 17 2010 15:52 A review full of pretension with little reward. This is a beautiful film with lovely re-occurring sub-plots, nuances and fantastic acting. Oh and a fabulous unexpected twist. I particularly loved the scene at the football stadium, of beauty, exhilaration and suspense all in a single camera shot. Do not listen to to this review, this film is a once in a decade masterpiece.

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martin janson said...

Posted on Sep 09 2010 10:21 I am a great fan of time out but sometimes they do get it horribly wrong. This movie is terrific entertainment and should not be missed. It is flawed but rivetting.

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Stephen said...

Posted on Sep 05 2010 01:10 Very stylish film; beautifully shot, with a subtle use of symbolism: the sort of thing you could never get from a US film.
Has Dave Calhoun been drafted in from covering the US wrestling section of Timeout due to staff shortages? It is the only way I can rationalise his review.
5 stars doesn't give enough scope for a sincere review: nothing is perfect, so excellent to very good, and even slightly good films end up getting 4! just a thought..

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Paul A said...

Posted on Sep 01 2010 09:20 One of the best films I have seen in a long time. Good old fashioned storytelling, great characters and good acting.

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VG said...

Posted on Aug 29 2010 11:47 I agree it is a fully round red wine of a film & not cola fizz. The interestingly complex themes of love, sacrifice, revenge and corruption spanning personal lives & politics are intriguingly interwoven with cinematographic panache. For me, it never flagged (and I'm easily bored/distracted) and I'm still savouring the after-taste. A worthy winner.

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Paul said...

Posted on Aug 29 2010 07:33 I agree that TO are being a tad harsh and I was far more impressed by A Prophet than this. Yet it is an enjoyable yarn that would have benefited from some harsh edits to cut out the flab. A full house last night at the cinema surprised me compared to a near empty house for the new Girl Who ... But as John C says, this is a grown-up movie and worth seeing.

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O'G said...

Posted on Aug 28 2010 12:52 The Elevator scene apart I never felt that the protagonists were in any real peril and this movie kind of plods along. Part of the problem might be it wasn't sure what it was. Initially I had heard it was a noir film ( definitely not ) then a politically allegory (I'm not that up to speed on Argentinian Politics of the 70's and if it was it was very subtle ) then a straightforward crime drama which if it is and I think it is - it's pretty ordinary. The performances are fine Campanella's Direction is okay, not great ( interiors are overlit / locations so so ) and the pay off at the end is telegraphed in the first act which all adds up to something that pretty much at the end of the day is just shy of a Hallmark Channel Movie of the Week. There might be a good movie in here somewhere, the way there was one in Revanche earlier in the year but much like it's Austrian Counterpart it's not nearly punchy enough.

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Phil Ince said...

Posted on Aug 19 2010 21:40 Good to see that Dave Calhoun's been studying online film criticism. No pay-off yet but, even so, self-education should always be applauded.
The film has a 5 star start for the first half hour. Dips to 4 for a comedy segment and winds up an odd sort of 3 star horror. The events depend on some actions that undermine the central characters’ (the comedy break-in, the bungled arrest at the football match – unbelievable start to the scene though; Orson Welles, eat your heart out!). The combined effect of some over-familiar comedy with Esposito’s and Sandoval’s foolishness wrecks it as a drama.
Both the moments when the accused murderer discloses himself to Irene and the denoeument should be chilling and they aren’t. It finishes as a petty film that seems to have used some nasty Argentine history as a backdrop rather than illuminated it.
I thought White Ribbon was over-rated but isn’t Dave right?, this is a lesser film.

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icfecex said...

Posted on Aug 18 2010 23:24 Thank you Neil! "Dimwit" sounds better.
I agree on your comment about "her failure to act on his very clear signals". The use of "Panfilo" in this scene is directed from her to him, since "Panfilo" in Spanish is singular masculine (she is not saying "dimwit" to herself, she is calling him a "dimwit").

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