Alternate Best Supporting Actor 2009: Guillermo Francella & Pablo Rago in The Secret in Their Eyes

Guillermo Francella did not receive an Oscar nomination nor did Pablo Rago for portraying Pablo Sandoval & Ricardo Morales respectively in The Secret in Their Eyes.

I've already praised to high heavens this film, and I don't always give the academy credit, but this was one of their best decisions in the then foreign language film category. But now it is time to praise it some more, as it isn't just a film with an engaging protagonist in the judicial officer Benjamin (Ricardo Darin), trying to figure out a murder/rape investigation both in the past and present, it also has a fantastic supporting cast. Guillermo Francella is front in center in this regard as Benjamin's friend at the judiciary office. Francella simply must be described as a delight who is kind of the ideal supporting performer very specifically as the supportive friend to Benjamin we see right away, as they both react to their immediate superior Irene (Soledad Villamil), with whom Benjamin is in love with both hesitates to say anything. I love Francella's openness in his performance as he compliments her with this earnest ease. Only bested by his sly ribbing as he notes that Benjamin struggles to have the same ease around her because he's infatuated with her. Francella brings such a sincere loving manner in this gentle teasing. In just a moment you see Francella bringing this perfect emotional honesty that defines Pablo, but also the immediate sense of the strict sincerity of his friendship even when being sarcastic with his friend. Pablo loves Benjamin whole heartedly and Francella makes it hard not to love Pablo. 

Pablo Rago basically performs at a polar opposite tonally from Francella, and the film's success in bringing both sides of this story to life with such ease is one of the joys of the film. Rago plays the husband of the victim of the central crime, and every visit with him by Benjamin is a remarkable moment in the film. His performance one is that immediately grants us the sense of potent grief that obviously pains the man, whom we see initially as just really a loss for the reality of it all. His face filled with heartbreaking disbelief. We see him next trying his best to help Benjamin with the investigation by just going through possible suspects in his wife's past. And Rago is again effective in showing this sense of grief within this quiet conviction of the man in trying to get justice for his wife. There's a strict sincerity in Rago's performance in every moment of trying to affirm help to Benjamin, and an important sense of kind of this focus is with the man in a way holding his grief back. Unfortunately, the man, Isidoro Gómez (Javier Godino), cannot be located. And we next see Morales as Benjamin finds him at a train station, waiting there every day by the chance he might find the man who is probably his wife's killer. Rago's performance is so moving because of the actual subdued delivery of the explanation. There's a fixation to be sure, but there's also this calm in his voice and importantly this love in his eyes, of a man who is steadfastly committed to his duty to his wife. 

The rest of the investigation is on the end of Pablo and Benjamin, and even though it is a murder investigation we actually get more comedy, as Pablo pushes Benjamin to skirt the law just a bit in their attempts to track down Isidoro. Francella is just wonderful in bringing this physical comedic energy in these scenes of showing the man who very much is almost a fully blown comedic performer, though he never goes too far. He finds just enough in this sort of hapless conviction in his manner that makes him very funny while never being just a joke. And part of the reason for this is the balance of when the two are talking about the severity of the crime and the importance of finding the killer, Francella's work is 100% dialed into the seriousness of that. Francella shows that Pablo is absolutely dogged in his own attempts to find the truth himself, even if his methods aren't always practical and that is where the comedy comes in. A favorite bit of mine in that regard is when the two of them get chewed out for their trespassing and Francell's reactions throughout the scene are pure gold. Because he plays it less as a man in genuine trouble, and more so as a kid who knows he stepped out of line but intends to step out of line again as soon as possible. Only feigning any embarrassment. 

And what is kind of fascinating is as much as Francella is the comic relief, he quite frequently shows that Pablo has perhaps the best sense of detecting the truth in terms of actually tracking down the killer. And we see this as Pablo suggests a plan when the trail goes cold, where Pablo runs down his plan to Benjamin in a bar. This is just a highlight and frankly amazing scene for Francella. Francella begins the scene relatively low-key in his encouraging delivery where there is just this spark in his eyes of a man with some keen ingenuity at the moment, and it is hard not to go with him as he keeps speaking his mind. This even recognizes his hobby of being drunk, despite having more or less a happy life, which Francella performs with this certain pride of a man who knows exactly who he is. Francella continues the scene like a circus ringmaster as he basically runs the whole bar to make his point, such as having another patron detail his obsession through his own knowledge of sports, to make the point that they could catch, Isidoro, also a sports fanatic as a game. A simple point theoretically, made so beautifully complicated by Francella's performance that brings such passion as he shows this realization a point of pure jubilation. 

Following the realization we have the two track down Isidoro at a stadium, looking for the man, and what is amazing is as much as Francella doesn't exude the leading man or the action hero type, he kind of becomes it in this scene. And the frenetic energy he brings is perfection as we see Pablo move around doing his absolute best to track down the killer and refusing to back down. Francella brings this unlikely yet wholly convincing conviction that makes Pablo an unexpected hero in the best of ways. And spoilers for the rest of this review, because this again a great film, and anyone who hasn't watched it should. But while they manage to catch Isidoro, he is quickly set free by the corrupt government who hires him as a killer. And we find Pablo now raging as a drunk at the system, and Francella is fantastic in creating the sense of the loss of that passion now. Showing instead someone defeated by the circumstance, even if the glint of the happy-go-lucky personality is still in there. Unfortunately, that is nearly the last we see him, when left alone Benjamin comes home to find him murdered by government thugs. And it is just alone an absolutely devastating moment because Francella has made him such a likable character up until this point. 

Meanwhile, we get two immediately contrasting scenes with Rago as Morales, one where we silently see Benjamin inform him of the good news, as just his reaction shows this quiet weight being lifted off his shoulders. Unfortunately, this is followed almost immediately by the bad news, where again Rago's performance is penetrating through the sort of unexpected way that he approaches the scene. The grief and the love are just givens within his performance, you sense them, but he plays them internalized as the man stays as this calm, even when knowing the killer is out there. Rago's performance though is oddly the one that is more reassuring than Darin's in the conversation, with Rago presenting this clarity in every delivery as Morales so calmly states that killing Isidoro would be too easy and quick for the man. Again he doesn't state with vicious revenge, but rather this separated sense of again a man speaking the truth. And that is the last we see of him before we catch up with the running later timeline where Benjamin is still fixated on the case after many years, and he goes to visit Morales now living very isolated in the country. 

And the two men meet up, each in a weird way having this certain state of being arrested in the past though very different ways. Rago again has almost this monk-like manner in the way he speaks of the past though with this assurance and calm. It is only when Benjamin presses him about Isidoro, we see a change where suddenly Rago becomes more present and it is so powerful because suddenly snaps at him wanting him to forget it. It is such a striking moment because it is so different and reveals the truth, though not the one we'd expect. But before that, Benjamin reveals his own memories of thinking about Pablo's death, and we get one more scene with Francella as a flashback to Benjamin's presumed memory of his friend's execution. This scene manages to make an already devastating death even more heartbreaking because Benjamin believes Pablo in his last act protected Benjamin by making the killers think he was him, by hiding all photos of the two and acting as their target. And Francella is amazing in the scene because he doesn't show fear, though the gravity of the situation is immediate in his reaction, there instead this extremely moving determination in his eyes as he goes about defending his friend in his last act. And if that was not haunting enough to contemplate, we have the finale of the mystery. First where Morales tries to set the record straight by telling Benjamin that he killed Isidoro years ago, having tracked him down because he knew he was looking for Benjamin. Rago's delivery has this vicious specificity of it as he explains his method but still this exact clarity. It is almost as if we've known Morales, but not entirely. And it is this whole brilliantly performed bit that earns Benjamin thinking back to all of Morales's words to check back to Morales once again to find that Isidoro is dead, but has in fact been imprisoned by Morales for years. Rago doesn't have a long moment in this scene but is absolutely haunting and we see the truth of the man entirely again. As we don't see vicious revenge, but this calm determination of duty as he dutifully completes the man's sentence for the death of the wife he adored so deeply. Both performances represent the strengths of the film, with Rago giving such specific yet soulful depiction of a revenge defined by love rather than hate, and Francella in a way being able to embody the very different successful tones of the film, being the loveable "sidekick" but also the heartbreaking hero. 

(Rago)