Everybody Knows

‘Everything matters for your daughter’ – Jorge

In Asghar Farhadi’s latest psychological thriller, Todos lo saben or ‘Everybody Knows’, Laura (Penelope Cruz) travels from Argentina to Spain with her two children for her sister’s wedding. While celebrating and connecting with old friends, her daughter Irene (Carla Campra) goes missing which tears the family apart as it causes many suppressed feelings to come to the surface.

The film encapsulated me sonically from the beginning with the use of what appeared to be diegetic sounds for most things which allowed me to feel like I was almost within the world of the film. The diegetic sounds, in my opinion, also showed how small and quiet the typical Spanish village is added to by the history of the town being know by everyone. For one Felipe, Paco’s nephew, as well as the rest of the village are know of the romantic history between Paco (Javier Bardem) and Laura.

The film is over two hours long and the majority of if is dedicated to character exploration rather than the key plot, which I think goes well with the title and the setting of the film but also shows how the dynamic between characters was most important and even influential to the plot of getting back Irene. That being said as the film gradually got to the end I was getting drained, especially as I felt as if I had figured out who kidnapped Irene but Frahadi threw many interesting twists into his script which was a good attempt to recapture  my interest but although interesting at the time, they are nothing unique to the world of film. Furthermore, the film ends on somewhat of a cliff-hanger, but this left me more disappointed than intrigued as I felt the storyline could’ve been better spent elsewhere, where the end was heading, than it was for the majority of the film. Additionally, at times I felt that Cruz’s character was overly dramatic as she was constantly in tears and crying out for help which started to feel quite forced as the film went on.

Ultimately, I do believe that the film does well as a general thriller but it doesn’t tackle the psychological aspect enough for me to agree with categorising it that way and with a duration of over two hours it should’ve done so successfully and not left me wanting more. However, Frahadi should be commended for successfully portraying a culture and even a language so foreign from his own.