U.S. Remakes of Foreign Blockbusters

Some stories carry the history of a country inside them, and that is where remakes can start to struggle. The Argentine film El secreto de sus ojos was not just a mystery. It was also a meditation on memory, unresolved love, institutional failure, and the emotional aftershocks of a darker political era. Ricardo Darín gives the story a weary intelligence, and Soledad Villamil helps ground the film in something achingly human. Then Hollywood remade it as The Secret in Their Eyes with Chiwetel Ejiofor, Julia Roberts, and Nicole Kidman. Those are serious performers, and the remake is not without effort, but the emotional climate changes.