Secret in Their Eyes

An ex-FBI agent (Chiwetel Ejiofor) has been obsessed for 13 years with the unsolved rape and murder of the teenage daughter of a co-worker (Julia Roberts)—and now he's sure he's tracked down the culprit at last. Is it worth reopening old wounds—not only the mother's grief, but his own unresolved feelings for the prosecutor (Nicole Kidman) on the cold case? Loosely based on the Argentine movie that won the Oscar for the Best Foreign Language Film in 2009, director Billy Ray's script is tense and serpentine, pinballing back and forth between 2001 and 2015 (sometimes Kidman's hair style and the gray at Ejiofor's temples are our only clues to what year it is), leading up to a rueful ending that's oddly satisfying, if a bit far-fetched. Ray builds an effective aura of menace and frustrated justice, with fine acting all around. J.L.