Chemistry in cinema - Part III: The Secret in Their Eyes

I came across The secret in their eyes a couple of years ago after a recommendation from a friend with similar taste in movies than mine. It is crime/drama movie from Argentina that covers a lot of subjects, including the main plot being an unresolved crime, injustice, corruption, friendship, platonic love, and finally love. For those who are Oscars fan, it won the Academy Award for Best Foreign movie in 2010.

It stars Ricardo Darin as Benjamin Esposito, a retired counsel who decides to write a novel based on an unsolved murder of a young woman that took place when he was in the force about 20 years earlier, right around the same time a new boss was assigned to run his department, Irene Hastings (played by Soledad Villasmil). As Benjamin starts investigating and doing research to document his novel, he runs across a lot of people who worked with him during the case back then and of course his former boss, who is now a married woman mother of two, while he on the other hand is single and alone.

Benjamin and Irene in the present time of the movie.

As you can expect from a movie I am considering as one of the best chemistry seen onscreen, right from the start you know that there is something between Benjamin and Irene. They may have not been together or even tried to be since they knew each other, but you can tell they are fond for each other. The movie flashbacks to a young Irene starting to work as boss of the bureau, after attending to college abroad Argentina soil -Harvard-, and taking over a department filled with "blue collar" workers, who for one or another reason couldn't afford to get a higher education, including Benjamin, and now have to answer to the noble Irene, who comes in a bit as a snob from a rich family. She dresses nice and expensive and her manners suggest that there is no way in life she could fall in love with someone like Benjamin, and she doesn't -at least not in the common cliche Hollywood way-, but pretty slowly they start to develop chemistry between them. At one point Irene and Benjamin work together in an interrogation of a subject and it in this moment when I think they begin to have feelings for each other.

The kiss they do not share.

The dialogues of the characters are well written and not cheesy at any time. They are based on the premise of a man and a woman who fight very hard maintain a professional relationship. They know things may get complicated if they let their personal relationship grow, and this is despite from coming from different worlds and have completely different backgrounds. She is an attractive beautiful woman, he is barely an average looking guy; she is rich, he is not; she went to Harvard, he didn't; she is a noble, he is a worker. In a key scene of the movie, Benjamin and Irene have zeroed in a suspect of the murder, a low level enforcement employee who has a patron in a corrupt District Attorney. The couple decides to confront the D.A. who in turn apart from reminding them they have no evidence against his protege, confronts Benjamin and makes him realize that his passion towards the resolution of the case is geared by the even stronger passion he has for Irene; however the fact that "he is Benjamin Esposito (implying a poor nobody random guy) and she is Irene Hastings (implying a wealthy noble woman of stature)." I am not going to spoil the next scene right after it, but I will say it has a lot of impact on both characters and the audiences as well.

The scene I will not spoil. It's up to you to watch.

The movie goes on under the plot of the murderer, and eventually it finds a place where to put Benjamin and Irene together, only that they don't get a chance to be with each other and instead end up separated until the present time where the movie takes place with Benjamin researching his novel and Irene wondering of what would have happened had they chosen to be together.

The ending is comforting for audiences because it doesn't feel forced at any time. It transmits a feeling that has been surrounding the entire movie atmosphere and that is also a main ingredient in the lives of every human being: hope. It also has one of the best end line I have heard in any movie: "Shut the door."