Film Review: Secret In Their Eyes

Directed by Billy Ray.
Starring Chiwetel Ejiofor, Julia Roberts, Nicole Kidman.
111 mins.
In cinemas now

As a subtle, sensual and slow-burning Argentine thriller is relocated to America, all its Oscar-winning strengths are lost in translation, becoming a dulled and cliché-ridden slog. Director Billy Ray (screenwriter of Captain Phillips and Shattered Glass) replaces Juan Jose Campenella, and moves the film’s action from Dirty War-era Argentina to post-9/11 America. It’s a canny move, playing on emotions that will resonate deeply with US audiences. In this atmosphere, DA investigator Jess (Julia Roberts), FBI investigator Ray Kasten (Chiwetel Ejiofor) and deputy district attorney Claire Sloan (Nicole Kidman) are united under a cultural cloud of paranoia, fear and a thirst for vengeance.

These emotions hit even closer to home when Jess’ daughter is murdered and a series of national, systematic and individual failings allow the murderer to walk free. Intercutting between 2002 and 2015, the film shows how Jess and Ray’s lives have been consumed by the murder in different ways. What hasn’t changed is the unexpressed (and sadly unconvincing) romantic longing between Ray and Claire, but as Ray presents new evidence, it’s unclear whether Claire will prioritise her old friends or her career.

The literary romanticism and brooding sexuality of the original is gone, replaced with a grisly procedural drama that, despite some excellent performances, remains almost inexplicably flat. Julia Roberts, however, is a revelation; broken by pain, iced by hate and aged by grief, her performance is free from vanity and fuelled by volcanic feeling. Nonetheless, Billy Ray’s jarring and needless time shifts prevent any emotional momentum. The shifts, like much of the action, feel perfunctory; a slick gimmick obscuring the potential substance underneath.

A film that’s less than the sum of its parts.

2.5/5