Films
Revenge is a dish best served cold for NOOMI RAPACE
Noomi Rapace in the thriller The Secrets We Keep
SINCE MOVING TO the US with her American doctor husband Lewis (Chris Messina) at the end of World War Two, Romanian émigrée Maja (Noomi Rapace) has done her best to put the dark memories of her wartime experiences behind her. A chance encounter with new neighbour Thomas (Joel Kinnaman), however, brings those memories back with a vengeance, his similarity to a Nazi soldier she saw commit heinous war crimes compelling her to take drastic action.
Assaulting Thomas on his way home from work, Maja proceeds to hold him prisoner in her basement to her husband’s appalled dismay. It’s an intriguing set-up for a taut threehander director Yuval Adler milks for maximum suspense, even when its plotting leans toward the implausible.
Rapace gives a typically forceful performance as the story’s wronged heroine, while it is to Kinnaman’s credit that we can never be entirely sure whether or not he is the guiltless family man he fervently professes to be. The edgy interplay between their characters makes for a gripping, claustrophobic drama that doesn’t really require the moments of graphic violence that punctuate it. One could say the same of the gruelling black and white flashbacks that detail Maja’s recollected trauma, scenes that to some eyes may border on exploitation. NS 2020, 15, 97MIN