'The Crimes That Bind' Review: Compelling family drama builds to crescendo before the mastery of final reveal
Spoilers for 'The Crimes that Bind'
The best part about 'The Crimes that Bind' is how it slowly reveals the pieces. At the very start, you have a disturbing image. A young woman, who we later find out is the live-in maid, Gladys (Yanina Avila), steps out into the narrow hallway shutting the bathroom door. We see a glimpse of blood inside and then, as she staggers down the passage, we see her clothes are also stained red in patches -- immediately we know something terrible has happened.
The movie keeps returning to this scene, again and again, revealing more each time until the final revelation. By this time, you are hit by the full import of what that scene signifies. Juxtaposing the story of Gladys, a barely literate young girl, who comes from an extremely impoverished background where she was abused physically and possibly sexually by her own father, is the story of her employers.
We come to know, via court proceeding where Gladys is being charged with first-degree murder, that she was brought to the city by her neighbors to work as a live-in maid for an older couple -- Alicia (Cecilia Roth) and Ignacio (Miguel Angel Sola). The couple are well-off and live in a lavish apartment with Alicia often lunching with her equally well-heeled friends. They seem happy and satisfied with their lives except for one aspect -- they haven't seen their grandson, three-year-old Martin, for over a year.
Alicia, while talking to her friends, reveals how their son Daniel's ex-wife, Marcela (Sofia Gala Castigleone), has kept Martin away from them and Daniel (Benjamin Amadeo). She angrily tells them about the lies Marcela has told destroying her son's life to keep custody of her grandson. The friends commiserate saying that Buenos Aires is filled with women making false accusations against their husbands and in-laws to get custody.
Alicia treats Gladys' son Santi like her own family -- possibly trying to fill the gap left by Martin. We see Alicia and Ignacio visit Daniel, in jail, where he has been imprisoned after being "falsely accused" by his ex again. When they ask him the details, he says that she called him saying she wanted to discuss Martin's custody and he was so eager to see his son that he fell for her trap. With the new accusations, he could go away for a long time and he begs his parents to help him.
At the court, we hear the same story from his lips and then we Marcela give her testimony, while Alicia gives her the stink eye. Her version puts an entirely different spin to events and paints Daniel as an abusive ex who is a repeat offender and who raped her when she refused to be with him. She tells the court that he refuses to leave her and her child alone despite her taking out a restraining order on him. Who is telling the truth? By making Alicia's POV the primary one, the viewer is put in the position of being confused about which narrative to believe.
As the story progresses Alicia loses her friends, home, and her husband (who is tired of bailing his son out of trouble, repeatedly). She will do anything to protect her son but as she does, more and more layers are peeled away. Simultaneously, the film also reveals that Gladys was pregnant with a second child who she smothers to death accidentally, to avoid waking her employers up, after she gives birth to him in the bathroom. Throughout the film, Gladys is a near-silent, absent-minded and anxious figure -- something is gnawing away within her and it is not just the matter of her pregnancy or her act of 'infanticide'.
After Gladys is sentenced to 18 years in jail, but she has made sure that Santi is adopted by Alicia, she reveals something that makes Alicia's life fall apart. We see Alicia slowly rebuild her life with Santi, based on the truth that Gladys reveals about Daniel. The film that sees Alicia and Gladys in and out of prisons and courtrooms is slowly paced and there are many scenes where the camera rests on the character's faces in silence as they struggle with words or emotions. These detailed pauses tell us much about the interior lives of these characters faced with impossible choices. This makes the impact of the final revelation even more resonant, making you want to hit replay instantly so you can appreciate the mastery with which the veil is pulled back.
'The Crimes that Bind' premiered on August 20 and is available to stream on Netflix.
