Review: Secret in Their Eyes

Passion is a powerful thing. It can overwhelm and consume, compromise and obfuscate. It can be a great motivator, but it can also destroy. The word passion serves as a guiding light in Secret in Their Eyes, an American remake of the 2009 Spanish-Argentinian film which won the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar over such stiff competition as Jacques Audiard's A Prophet and Michael Haneke's The White Ribbon.

One can see how director Juan Jose Campanella's thriller, an engrossing and melancholic pulp policier capped with a genuinely surprising twist, would be a draw for Hollywood. Yet, as is very often the case, something has been lost in the translation. In and of itself, the remake is a solid and competent work, deviating just enough from the original to set itself apart whilst being canny enough to recreate the most memorable moments of Campanella's film with little to no alteration. The fact that writer-director Billy Ray's version comes most alive during the sequences most similar to the 2009 film is already a crucial signifier of its failings.

Hopscotching between 2015 and 2002, the story hinges on a particularly brutal murder of a young woman who was beaten and raped before being killed and doused in bleach to eliminate any DNA that could betray the killer. FBI investigator Ray Kasten (Chiwetel Ejiofor), who has been working with a special task force to investigate terrorist cells in Los Angeles following the 9/11 attacks, is horrified to discover that the victim, whose body was ditched in a dumpster behind a mosque, is the daughter of his partner, Jess Cobb (Julia Roberts). This plot point is the script's biggest change from the original story, and Roberts' anguish over the loss of her character's daughter and Ejiofor's helplessness are heartbreaking. Ray and cinematographer Danny Moder create something truly affecting here - that shot of Kasten standing by the dumpster containing the bereaved Cobb and her lifeless child is resonant not only for what is visible in the frame but more so for what is hidden.

Though there is scant evidence, Kasten latches onto a young man named Marzin (Joe Cole), whose image is on both the FBI's surveillance photos of the mosque as well as a photograph of a company picnic attended by Cobb and her daughter. Marzin, however, also happens to be a key informant for Kasten's colleague Reg (Michael Kelly) and boss Morales (Alfred Molina) and is thus deemed untouchable - the safety of the country against a potential terror attack far outweighs justice for one of their own. Kasten cannot let it go, not after Marzin walks free, not after 13 years of poring over thousands and thousands of police mugshots. When he finally identifies a recent parolee he believes to be Marzin, Kasten returns to his old offices to ask district attorney Claire Sloan (Nicole Kidman), with whom he's shared an unrequited attraction, to re-open the case so they can convict Marzin once and for all and bring piece and closure to Cobb.

Personal and professional pursuits blur and intertwine in Secret in Their Eyes with passion being the main engine. Cobb speaks of passion winning out, of passion defining a person whether it be passion for her daughter or Kasten's passion in pursuing the truth or Sloan's passion in tamping down her romantic desires in order to achieve her professional ambitions. Passion, whatever its form, ultimately becomes a prison that is an uneasy but accepted home for all three characters. The main problem with Secret in Their Eyes is that passion is never truly felt. One understands why Kasten, Cobb and Sloan behave the way they do even if it actually does not make any sense. Kasten, especially, is most befuddling in his determined obsession partly because, despite the flashbacks to happier times with Cobb and her daughter, one never registers the history between the two colleagues, so why the unwavering doggedness?

A similar problem plagues the romantic bond between Kasten and Sloan. Now Kidman is one of the best flirts onscreen, often revealing a coquettishness beneath her cool exterior, but even she cannot muster any sparks with Ejiofor. Kidman, however, does nail one of the film's most absorbing scenes as Sloan goads the tight-lipped Marzin, questioning his virility and sexually humiliating him. Roberts is given one note to play, but she plays it well, shrouding herself in grief and suitably conveying a hollowed haggardness.

Secret in Their Eyes

Directed by: Billy Ray

Written by: Billy Ray; adapted from the script by Juan Jose Campanella and Eduardo Sacheri

Starring: Chiwetel Ejiofor, Nicole Kidman, Julia Roberts, Dean Norris, Alfred Molina, Michael Kelly, Joe Cole, Zoe Graham