A great thriller with Julia Roberts in a very different role.
Secret in Their Eyes, Blu-ray (2016)
Cast: Chiwetel Eijofor, Nicole Kidman, Julia Roberts
Director & writer: Billy Ray
Studio: Universal Pictures Home Entertainment 64176457 (2/23/16) 2 discs
Video: 2.40:1 for 16:9, 1080p HD color
Audio: English DTS-HD MA 5.1, DD 5.1
Subtitles: French, Spanish, English SDH
All Regions
Extras: Commentary track by Billy Ray & Producer Mark Johnson, Digital copy, “Adapting the Story for Today’s World,” Julia Roberts discusses her most challenging role
Length: 1 hr. 52 min.
Rating: *****
This haunting thriller explores the indistinct boundaries between justice and revenge. A tight team of rising investigators (Eijofor left the agency some years ago and has been a private detective) is turn apart when the lovely teenage daughter of one of them (the Roberts’ role) is brutally raped and murdered. The Ray character has worked for 13 years in his spare time searching for the killer and thinks he has finally found him and that will resolve the case. At first he has to try to convince the Kidman character, who is sort of the boss of the three, but eventually she supports and aids him. But nobody is prepared for the secret that vengence has caused in the soul of the Roberts character.
This was a couragous role for Julia Roberts to take, and totally different from the role she had played in Pretty Woman and other films. The scene where she first discovers the body in a dumpster and immediately climbs in to cradle her dead daughter is really something. Very moving and intense.
—John Sunier
