★★½
“Lost cause.”
The film begins with an Argentinian school-trip to a volcanic area, which goes badly wrong when one of the schoolgirls, Cornelia, vanishes. Despite an extensive search, all that’s found is her locket. 14 years later, the missing girl’s best friend, Pipa (Lopilato), is now a cop, channeling the guilt she still feels about Cornelia’s disappearance and her role in it, into work. After a mass to mark the anniversary of the incident, Cornelia’s mother visits Pipa, begging her to re-open the case. Despite initial qualms, she does so, only to find a restaurant-sized can of worms comes along with it. Pipa finds herself facing a serious criminal organization, under the control of a woman known as The Mermaid (Salamanca), whose tentacles stretch both around the world and into the past.
This is based on the book Cornelia, by Florencia Etcheves. Whether the same is true of the source novel, I can’t say, but the film is very clearly influenced by The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, and other entries in the Nordic noir genre, right down to the snowy, desolate Patagonian landscapes where the film both opens and closes. Pipa is the typical heroine of such things, far more skilled at dealing with evidence than people, although here subcontracts out any shady technological needs to her Lisbeth Salander-alike pal, Alina (Sabatini). I spotted the main twist early on too, though in the film’s defense, I’m not sure how much it was supposed to be a surprise, since it seemed blindingly obvious in its nature.
A bigger problem is likely what goes around it, with elements that seem to show up out of nowhere: maybe they’re explained better in the book? For instance, Pipa gets a key clue from an inmate at a lunatic asylum, yet I’m not sure how she discovered this. And if the heroine is apparently so guilt-ridden over Cornelia’s disappearance, and was propelled by it to make a career in law-enforcement, why did she not bother to re-open the case for almost a decade and a half? Lopato gives an okay performance, managing to make her spiky, loner character somewhat likeable – another key aspect of Nordic noir. However, I was more intrigued by The Mermaid, and her character arc. How does someone become so indifferent to the suffering of others? There’s scope for a Maleficent like retelling of this story, from her point of view.
This is more of a general observation than a specific criticsm, yet I get the feeling this kind of thing might work better as a TV series. The additional time available would allow an extended period over which viewers can get to know the participants and their quirks. The finale here certainly feels rushed, to the point that you barely have time to go “Hang on, that doesn’t make sen…” before it’s over. A fractured timeline doesn’t help in terms of the necessary building of relationships with these characters, and the final result comes up significantly short of the necessary amount of emotional impact.
Dir: Alejandro Montiel
Star: Luisana Lopilato, Amaia Salamanca, Rafael Spregelburd, Oriana Sabatini