And an old and durable story, too: the radicalization of a complacent bourgeoise, namely an Argentine history teacher who comes to suspect that her adopted five-year-old might be one of the desaparecidos -- missing children of political prisoners, sold for profit into good homes. The climate of complacency is set up at leisure, and the sudden gear-shift into something more serious is properly grating: drunken giggles turned to dumbstruck horror. Even after that, the drama lacks a little in momentum, and the image (even before it) is pallid and dingy. Norma Aleandro does what she can, and more than she should have to, to supply what isn't there: her portrayal of moral qualmishness approaches the operatic. And sometimes surpasses it. Directed by Luis Puenzo. (1985) — Duncan Shepherd
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