THE SECRET IN THEIR EYES (2010) (***1/2)

Before this Argentine film was released in the U.S., it surprised many by beating out frontrunners A PROPHET and THE WHITE RIBBON, both remarkable films. While I think those films are more accomplished than this police procedural meets romance, I can see why Academy members gave their votes to this film. It’s conventional in the way quality films use to be made. It also has an ending that comes to define the entire film, because it’s so unexpected.

Benjamin Esposito (Ricardo Darin, NINE QUEENS) is a legal counselor who is now retired and writing a novel based on a case that has consumed him for 25 years. What has also consumed him is his boss, Irene (Soledad Villamil), who was involved in the case he is writing about. The case is that of Lilana Coloto (Carla Quevedo), a beautiful schoolteacher who has brutally raped and murdered. Two day laborers were arrested, beaten, confessed and imprisoned in that order. Esposito can’t bear to tell her husband Ricardo Morales (Pablo Rago) that he believes the real killer is his wife’s childhood friend Isidoro Gomez (Javier Godino, DECEPTION).

Director Juan Jose Campanella (SON OF THE BRIDE) captures the title throughout the film with many close ups on the characters' eyes. We know the subtext behind those shots as passions are hidden. Esposito comes to suspect Gomez by seeing the way he leers at Lilana in photographs. As his drunken partner Pablo Sandoval (Guillermo Francella, RUDO Y CURSI) says, you can change anything in life accept your passion. Many of the characters have dual passions, but it is still the same, they can never let them go.

Part of the reason Esposito develops his passion for this particular case is because of the passion Morales has for his wife. Everyday after work he waits at a train station, hoping he'll catch the killer returning to the city. Esposito has never seen love like that before or since. I have — Esposito for Irene. He has never forgotten her for a second. The years have not dampened his passion, but he has to overcome his fear. In his mind, he was never good enough for the college grad who eventually married a rich, influential man. As he said she seemed like a lifetime ago, but then he realized it was this lifetime.

Campanella weaves the past and present together with patience. Based on Campanella and Eduardo Sacheri's adaptation of Sacheri's novel, the film doesn't follow a standard pattern so it keeps us guessing. Like classic Golden Age crime stories, the film allows room for comic relief. Here it comes in the form of Sandoval, whose passion for the bottle leaves him unreliable. And yet he has an indelible charm in how he comes through when one might expect him to come through. And when he screws up at least it's funny. It has what many good crime tales have — corruption, double crosses, good cop/ bad cop interrogations, chases and plot twists. The chase scene in a soccer stadium takes place in one long shot that weaves through crowds and over walls and onto the field in mind-boggling fashion.

Then we come to the end. Confessions are made. Everything seems to be put behind. But there is more. The poignancy of the moment underlines all the themes of the film and stays true to the nature of its characters. Justice is hard to get. Passions cannot change.