Galway Film Society

The Secret in their Eyes

Dir: Juan José Campanella - Argentina 2009 - 129 mins

The Secret in Their Eyes which won Best Foreign Language Film at the Academy Awards 2010, is a suspenseful crime drama with a love story at its core. Retired from his career in Argentina's criminal court, Benjamín Espósito (Ricardo Darín) begins writing a novel about a case from his past that continues to haunt him. In 1974, a beautiful young newlywed was raped and murdered in her home while her husband worked at the bank. Espósito was sent to investigate the horrifying crime. Looking at the gaze of a man in photos from the murdered woman's college years, a younger Espósito instinctively feels he has his killer. Tracking down the suspect becomes a personal obsession that draws him into ever-riskier situations. The case also intensifies Espósito's relationship to his young boss, Irene Menéndez Hastings (Soledad Villamil). Campanella's tightly paced feature pairs smart dialogue with powerful, moving performances. Darín and Villamil, two of Argentina's best actors, bring an electric sense of unspoken longing to their scenes together, an intimacy of mutual suppression.