Julia good, movie not so.
Secret in Their Eyes
Grade: C
Director: Billy Ray (Shattered Glass)
Screenplay: Ray (Captain Phillips) from Eduardo Sachen novel The Question in Their Eyes.
Cast: Julia Roberts (Closer), Chiwetel Ejiofor (12 Years a Slave)
Rating: PG 13
Runtime: 111 min.
by John DeSando
A mystery-thriller like Secret in Their Eyes should have enough twists and turns that no one’s eyes are sharp enough for unraveling.
While the secrets about the rape-murder of a cop’s daughter are within the usual scope of this formula, the lies count as one big one around which two plot twists are couched.
It’s just that the admixture of justice and revenge is rather tedious, or rather it takes a long time for the real revenge to kick in, a badly needed portion of a film that lacks energy through at least two thirds of its search for the murderer. As mom Jess (Julia Roberts) lives to revenge her daughter’s murder, colleague Ray (Chiwetel Ejiofor) doggedly pursues a suspect for over a dozen years, and his target may not even be the murderer.
In the context of the investigation, no evidence is gripping enough to warrant our listening to the constant distress over the death and the blocks in Ray’s way, which are many, and rightfully so, because the evidence against the alleged murderer is weak. That also means the plot, too, is weak.
Stronger, however, is the undercurrent of lust/love between DA Claire (Nicole Kidman) and Ray, a circumstance going on as long as the investigation and like it, feckless. Given Claire’s beauty and Ray’s charm, even this subplot is welcome in an otherwise flabby thriller.
As for Julia Roberts, hooray for makeup that makes one of film’s great beauties look average and worn out. Yet, she acts as well as I have ever seen her. Kidman, on the other hand, is radiant.
Because I rarely comment on the looks of any actors, you can infer that I have nothing better to talk about. Like the title, the film is inscrutable, at least as to why it is made in the first place.
John DeSando, a Los Angeles Press Club first-place winner for National Entertainment Journalism, hosts WCBE’s It’s Movie Time and co-hosts Cinema Classics. Contact him at JDeSando@Columbus.rr.com
