Enjoyable, but completely overrated

Rating: 7/10 (21 April 2011)

An Argentinian film directed by Juan José Campanella that tells the story of a retired public lawyer, Bejamin Esposito, who starts writing a novel about one of the most intriguing cases of his past: the rape and murder of young wife Liliana Coloto, and the investigation, with his colleague Sandoval and superior Irene, that led to the capture of her murderer.
The acting is uneven, poor sometimes, with the exception of Guillermo Francella who is terrific as the drunkard but insightful lawyer Pablo Sandoval. Soledad Villamil and Ricardo Darin have a great chemistry on camera, but not much dramatic emotion can come from them as the script has the love story as a background to the murder investigation, so their feelings are mostly showed indirectly. She plays correctly Irene, a high-class judge, a beautiful rich inaccessible girl. Darin shines in his portrait of the lonely old retiree looking for clues in his life through remembrance, more than in his portray of the young Esposito; however, he portrays with constriction and sensitivity the soft looser that Esposito is. The script tells us widower Ricardo Morales is an emotional wreck after the death of his wife, a man still in deep love with her, but Pablo Rago's performance rather shows emotional frigidity regarding the death of his wife, his grieving, and the search and capture of the murderer. I found Javier Godino's performance over the top as rapist Isidoro Gomez, although I think it is what the script requires from him; in that regard, it is not his fault.
I do not mind flaws in a script if they are well integrated in the story, and if the movie compensates them with other positive elements. However, there are so many and evident flaws here that one cannot ignore them. 1/ The first is the fact that the way a man looks a woman in a photo can lead to anyone to suspect he is a murderer; to be honest, if this is the case, Esposito could be a potential murderer, too, if we take into account the way he looked at his adored Irene in the photos taken in her pre-wedding party. 2/ When Esposito and Sandoval are at the house of Isidoro's mother, the old lady returns, her dog starts barking at them but she does not suspects anything, and, even more, OMG the back-door is completely open for them to run! 3/ We are told who is the murderer and that he loves a specific football team, so Esposito and Sandoval go to the next match, the stadium is fully packed, but they manage to find Isidoro 10 feet away from them; not only that, the lawyers have convinced the Police -one assume Argentinian Police had much free time at hand at the time and would consider the proposal sane- to be there to capture the murderer. 4/ Most of the movie is set in the 1970s, when a military dictatorship was ruling Argentina, a system that allowed the Justice System to act in a certain way; but if you are not familiar with Argentinian history many of the events/attitudes in the movie wont make any sense to you. 5/ We know who the murderer is quite early, before he is even captured, a fact that kills the suspense very soon. 6/ One would expect that whomever sent the group of assassins to Esposito's apartment to kill him would have provided them with a photo or at least an accurate description, so the question of the assassins in the movie is completely redundant. 7/ The end of the murder case is good, but still, too delayed and lost in a mix of themes explored at the same time; on the other hand, the end of the romance story is a bit unbelievable, "I solve the mystery and I overcome all of my securities with this woman" sort of thing. This, and much more, makes impossible to call this movie a masterpiece, unless you are blind.
Said this, the movie has a wonderful warm retro mood and tones, a beautiful interior photography, a simple unfulfilled romance story, an intriguing plot, a very interesting ending, and good performances by Darin and Francella.
The film it truly overrated.