- As Juan José Campanella's The Secret in Their Eyes opens, we are shown a man slowly walking away from a woman on a train platform. The two characters are in focus, but their backgrounds shimmer like an impressionist painting brought to life. The man boards the train, and it begins to move. The woman gives chase, pressing her hand against the window that separates her from the man she loves, but the train is already pulling out of the station. Sounds pretty cliché, right? The film thinks so, too, and cuts to the frustrated author, who scratches out that first attempt at the introduction to his novel.
- The author is Benjamín Espósito (Ricardo Darín), and 25 years ago he worked as a federal agent in Buenos Aires. These days, he finds himself dwelling on the Morales case, in which a beautiful young woman (Carla Quevedo) was raped and killed, leaving behind a distraught husband (Pablo Rago). As we learn in flashback, lots of things were happening in Espósito's life back then. For one, he was in love with his new department chief, Irene Menéndez (Soledad Villamil), who is now a successful -- and married -- judge. Espósito also had to cope with his partner Pablo Sandoval (Guillermo Francella), whose moments of great investigative insight were separated by far longer spans of drunkenness. Back then, Espósito's obsession with the Morales case earned him the enmity of both his superior (Mario Alarcón) and his rival (Mariano Argento), but his team nevertheless chased down the killer (Javier Godino).
- Allow me to elaborate upon what I mean by "chased down the killer." In one of the best chase sequences I've ever seen and, quite frankly, one of the most impressive tracking shots in cinematic history, the camera swoops in on a soccer match where Espósito's eyes are the only ones ignoring the game. He's scanning the crowd for the killer, whom Sandoval has deduced is a fan of the Racing Football Club. They spot him in the crowd of thousands, and the killer makes a run for it. I could tell you the rest, but doing so would deprive you of the pleasure of viewing this scene for yourself. Unfortunately, the detectives' heroic efforts are rewarded with an early release for their prisoner, which has truly dire consequences for everyone involved.
- While the chase scene will forever dominate my memory of The Secret in Their Eyes, the film also serves as a thoughtful meditation on a wide variety of subjects including interpersonal relationships, regret, machismo, justice, and even storytelling itself. Although its ending contains a few more twists and turns than needed, I'm willing to ascribe this to the film's greater goal of constantly defying the audience's expectations. Add in strong acting performances from the entire cast and some of the better aging makeup work I've seen, and you have a great mystery whose many facets are perhaps best viewed with one of the film's ubiquitous sidelong glances.
