“In Her Place” review – true crime drama of a court clerk in the dock fascinated by the author | film

CHile’s Oscar entry this year is this whimsical, unsatisfying oddity from director Maite Alberdi, co-produced by Pablo Larraín and inspired by a strange true crime story from the 1950s. At first glance it’s elegant and amusing enough, with some offbeat humor that Alfred Hitchcock might have enjoyed. But it never really packs the punch it seems to promise; The intense psychological drama of single-white-woman-meets-Ripley never materializes. A documentary might have served this material better, or a feature film that doesn’t star a fictional character.

In Chile, in 1955, the entire nation was shocked by the arrest of best-selling author María Carolina Geel, who had brazenly shot her lover in the dining room of the posh Crillón Hotel in Santiago, apparently because he was in love with another woman. Furthermore, the murder appeared to be a bizarre homage to an earlier shooting at the same location: in 1941, the surrealist poet María Bombal had shot her former lover (non-fatally) again at the Hotel Crillón and was acquitted. Press and public opinion were in turmoil over the Geel case, and Chilean Nobel laureate and poet Gabriela Mistral petitioned the president for a pardon.

Alberdi’s film bizarrely imagines a shy woman who works as a secretary for the trial judge; She is Mercedes (Elisa Zulueta), who is tired of this job, but also of being the mother of two boisterous teenage sons and the wife of a photographer who semi-competently runs a studio out of his cramped and messy apartment. She is fascinated by the glamorous murderess Geel (Francisca Lewin) with her beautiful, unburdened lifestyle. The defendant’s apartment keys are among the personal items in the prosecution’s possession; While Geel is in custody in a nunnery, Mercedes breaks into this elegant apartment and is amazed at all the luxury. She tries on her designer clothes and fragrances, wears them to work, and hangs around the apartment every night telling her poor husband that she’s being held at the office.

And where is all this leading? To a violent obsession? A brutal revelation? Another exciting crime thriller? Not really, no; Everything exciting that happens to the fictional Mercedes is difficult to fit into the historical record. So the film sinks into a sentimental, bittersweet sadness when it comes to the stylish killer’s lawn looking greener than the one you cared for. The inner workings of Geel himself are left untouched and Bombal, the first shooter (who was alive during this situation), is only briefly mentioned. A misfire.