The Secret in Their Eyes

The Secret in Their Eyes: this is how you make a good movie.

The picture, winner of the 2010 Academy Award for Best Foreign Film, weaves the story of a murder investigation with the developing relationship between two of the people working the case.  I know, it sounds like something you’ve seen on screens, large and small, in numbers beyond measure.  But stay with me.

The key to this film lies in the fact that it’s about people who think and feel.  Most films, it seems, are about people who speak and act, and we sometimes wonder if they say or do anything that doesn’t directly advance the plot of their collective story.  The Secret in Their Eyes, by contrast, presents us with complete and plausible human beings.  Yes, they’re complete and plausible human beings involved in an investigation, but in some ways that comes second.

And since we know them and since we care about them and since we believe in them, we buy into this film.  We connect with its people and go along with all its twists and turns, its reveals and surprises, and in the end we’re left with a movie that’s more than good – it’s satisfying, the way spending time with interesting people is satisfying.  This is how you do it right.