Director: Asghar Farhadi
Writer: Asghar Farhadi (Screenplay)
Starring: Penelope Cruz, Javier Bardem, Ricardo Darin, Eduard Fernandez, Barbara Lennie
Plot: Laura, a Spanish woman living in Buenos Aires, returns to her hometown outside Madrid with her two children to attend her sister’s wedding. However, the trip is upset by unexpected events that bring secrets into the open.
Tagline – Who knows your fears; who knows the truth.
Runtime: 2 Hours 13 Minutes
There may be spoilers in the rest of the review
Story: Everybody Knows starts when Laura (Cruz) returns to Madrid for a family wedding with her two children, she gets to catch and have fun with her loved ones, only for this joyous celebration to turn sour when her daughter Irene (Campra) is abducted.
Laura gets a ransom demand along with the wife of her old friend Paco (Bardem) which will lead to a string of events that will expose the secrets between people while keeping the race against time to save the missing girl.
Thoughts on Everybody Knows
Thoughts – Everybody Knows is a powerful drama that takes what should be a moment of pure celebration and turns it into a nightmare for a mother seeing her daughter abducted. Trapped in a country she isn’t living in anymore, she must trust the people, some loved ones, others strangers to try and help her discover the whereabouts and put together a ransom to save her daughter. This is an excellent use of the ideas of people using information about someone to their advantage, giving people the chance to use people to get something and will keep us guessing to who was involved until the very end. The performances in the film with Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem in the leading roles a brilliant and the locations are used to make just as much of an impact, with Laura getting to walk down memory lane with each location.
Everybody Knows is a powerful mystery drama that is one you just want to see the truth from, with excellent performances.