Ricardo Darin & Soledad Villamil

What are the odds that the year's most compelling mystery would end up hanging its hat on the year's richest love story?

From Argentina, "The Secret in Their Eyes" won this year's Academy Award for best foreign language film, besting such formidable titles as "The White Ribbon" and "A Prophet."

All three offer lessons in combining pulp and sociology, bringing to life geographically specific and richly detailed worlds on screen. Of the three, though, it's this one -- co-written, co-produced, edited and directed by Juan Jose Campanella -- that really delivers as entertainment.

Campanella's resume is fascinating: He was born in Buenos Aires, where most of this legal drama takes place, but he has done a lot of American television in what could broadly be defined as workplace procedurals, ranging from "Law & Order" and "House" to "30 Rock." "The Secret in Their Eyes" ranges nearly as widely within its own 129 minutes.

You never quite know where it's going, yet its mixture of tones and colors and melodrama and mature, mellow romance is irresistible.

It takes a while to get the hang of its two-track narrative structure, adapted by Campanella and Eduardo Sacheri from Sacheri's novel. A divorced, 60-ish and recently retired criminal court investigator has undertaken a writing project, a fictionalized version of a 25-year-old rape and murder case never solved. Benjamin Esposito -- played by Ricardo Darin -- revisits his old haunts to bring the past into some kind of focus. His former colleague (Soledad Villamil), now a judge, has tantalized Esposito since they first met. He remains haunted by this woman, no less than the murder victim's grieving husband (Pablo Rago) is haunted by his own loss.

The movie works for many reasons. Each major character registers, both as written and as acted by this superb cast, and is vivid enough to deserve a film of his or her own. The wry, funny interaction of these midlevel bureaucrats, including Esposito's alcoholic but wily colleague (Guillermo Francella), moves and sounds and feels like life. (At times you might think you're watching two terrific episodes of "Law & Order" back to back, if "Law & Order" were set in Buenos Aires.)

Half the film unfolds in flashback in 1970s Argentina, as Esposito and his intrepid colleagues buck the system and try to solve a murder case rapidly growing cold. When they do catch up with their prime suspect, the scene's a fantastic showpiece: a chase all over a packed soccer stadium, seamlessly connecting several long takes, the most memorable of which follows the suspect onto the field during the match. (A key scene preceding this, one of ugly sexual goading behind closed office doors, is in its explicit way no less arresting.)

The mystery's resolution may remind you of Dennis Lehane's crime-and-morality tales. The script's exploration of a corrupt judicial system recalls the best of Sidney Lumet's ensemble works. But the love story is what sets "The Secret in Their Eyes" apart. Make no mistake, the film's a bit shameless: The poetic, running-to-say-goodbye-at-the-train-station prologue and its bookend sequence carry a whiff of the romance-novel ethos. Yet Darin and Villamil are wonderful together, playing actual, three-dimensional grown-ups. It's a shock to the system, let me tell you.

There's nothing high-minded or consciously elevating about this picture. It's simply the best kind of pulp, done with feeling and smarts and behavioral details usually left out of both crime films and love stories.

 

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"The Secret in Their Eyes" Movie Trailer

 

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MPAA rating: R (for a rape scene, violent images, some graphic nudity and language).

Running time: 2:09.

Cast: Ricardo Darin (Benjamin Esposito); Soledad Villamil (Irene); Pablo Rago (Ricardo); Guillermo Francella (Pablo Sandoval); Javier Godino (Isidoro Gomez).

Credits: Directed by Juan Jose Campanella; written by Eduardo Sacheri and Campanella, based on Sacheri's novel; produced by Gerardo Herrero, Mariela Besuievsky and Campanella. A Sony Pictures Classics release.