Another Stirring Foreign Film at the Grandin

"The Secret in Their Eyes," playing at the Grandin Theatre in Roanoke, is the second straight foreign crime film at that theater in recent days that has a simply astonishing story, delivered almost to perfection.

Like "The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo" from Sweden, Argentina's "Secret" has a foul murder at its center and a love story on its edges. Sparkling secondary characters and direction and acting are sterling. It is a movie with a good pedigree: Best Foreign Language Film of 2010, according to the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences.

Juan Jose Campanella adapted the novel by Eduardo Sechari and directed his screenplay. Ricardo Darin and Soledad Villamil are the reluctant lovers at the head of the cast, but it is a string of marvelous supporting roles that give the movie its breadth and depth, especially the performance of Guillermo Franchella as the drunken sidekick of Darin's crime investigator and the creepy-evil killer Javier Godino.

Because "Secret" is subtitled and complex, it can be difficult to follow, but it is well worth the effort, rolling steadily toward a satisfying, albeit inhumane conclusion.