One terrifying murder has a butterfly effect for the lives of many co-workers, in “The Secret In Their Eyes”. A tight-knit team of rising investigators, Ray and Jess (Chiewetel Ejiofor, Julia Roberts), along with their supervisor Claire (Nicole Kidman), is suddenly torn apart when they discover that Jess’s teenage daughter has been brutally and inexplicably murdered. Now, thirteen years later, after obsessively searching every day for the elusive killer, Ray finally uncovers a new lead that he’s certain can permanently resolve the case, nail the vicious murderer, and bring long-desired closure to his team. No one is prepared, however, for the shocking, unspeakable secret that will reveal the enduring, destructive effects of personal vengeance on the human soul. “The Secret In Their Eyes” has a lot going for it, but a lot hampering it’s progress structuraly at the same time. This is one of those films that is a performance driven storm that serves as distraction for a script that is faulty at best.
The first act starts off as strong as can possibly be expected. There were moments during the opening half hour that really sucked me in and left me empathetic at the beautiful performance by Roberts. Julia is one of those presences that really understands the way that 20th century on-screen emotions work, and her delivery is absolutely nerve shattering in this film. Ejiofor also continues to be brilliant as one of Hollywood’s best leading men. His role as Ray is something that a lot of people look for in a friend. That tight knit respect and honor between he and Jess reflects beautifully something refreshing without being romantically linked. In addition to the two main protagonists, the film has a strong supporting cast including Dean Norris, Alfred Molina, and a menacing Joe Cole as the killer in question. Joe works so effortlessly to pull the anger out of the audience, even if some of his dialogue is a little eye-rolling at times. He’s the perfect actor for a role like this because he isn’t some big strong monster. He’s a normal guy with some tough to crack protection that makes him nearly untouchable to the bureau.
The second act of the film is really where things start to fall apart. The movie creatively decides to tell two stories at once, serving as a past (In 2001) during the discovery of Jess’s daughter, and the present (In 2014) when the case is reopened after Ray’s shocking discovery. I personally had no problem with this idea, as i thought it was a creative way to narratively twist and turn each side of the story with the other. My problem though, is how confusing the transitional scenes back and forth become. The makeup and prop work for the movie isn’t very convincing or detailed, so I found myself at times searching for hints as to what year the current scene took place in, when i should’ve been paying attention to the dialogue and progression of events being displayed in the scenes. It gets very frustrating because thirteen years is a long time for characters who were in their 30’s to begin with, and yet the loss of a few hairs is all that we get. Aside from this, there are many scenes in the movie that make absolutely no sense by the time the credits roll. Once the big shock is revealed and we find out the fate for our characters, we come to realize that this movie was only stretched as far as 105 minutes because the plot required it to. I won’t spoil anything, but none of the things that transpired in the film needed to happen if one of the characters were smart enough to let everyone in on their secret.
One thing i wanted to mention was the ending. This is one of those scenes that will have a lot of people split 50/50 on the fence with how they felt about it. I personally thought the final ten minutes of the movie fixed some (Not all) of the problems that i had with how the case closed. There’s a strong personal message inscribed in there that solidifies how important it truly is to let go of the past and start living for the days you have ahead. It ends the film on a strong note, and that (Along with the things already mentioned) is why i rated the film as high as i did. It’s not a terrible movie, but it’s not one that I would probably ever watch again. Billy Ray’s script could’ve definetly used a refresher course, especially with some of the dialogue during the second act, which is downright comical at times. I also wish Ray would’ve taken a page out of Dennis Vilenueve’s book and made this film as dark and grim as it needed to be. Luckily, the actors are solid enough that they can commute these kind of circumstances, even when the script is ignoring them. “The Secret In Their Eyes” is a decent way to waste two hours, but during a season with so much better content available, this one is doomed to be forgotten in two weeks time. What looked like a strong Oscar contender with the first trailer i saw in early Summer, failed to garner anything out of me that made it as memorable as murder case classic films like “Seven” or “Oxygen”.
5/10
Curious to find out what the secret is. How was Nicole Kidman’s performance? I usually like movies with her & Roberts in them. Probably another example of a trailer showing the best parts of a movie. Perhaps, to portray the past it could have been in black & white for a smoother transition – like it was in Return of the Walking Dead. Unless that would be half of the movie… then that wouldn’t work out too well.
Kidman was solid enough. She is the third tier between her-Roberts-Ejiofor, so not the most screen time in the world. The trailer didn’t steal everything from the film, most notably in the big reveal in the end, but this movie was just sloppy in parts. The transition scenes happened the whole film, so the black and white would’ve been annoying with too much back and forth. I just think better prosthetics could’ve accomplished the young and old look. Thanks for reading again sweetheart.