Carlos (Banderas) is a theatre director whose journalist wife Cecilia (Thompson) is "disappeared" by government agents. While Carlos and their teen daughter Teresa (Dolera) search for answers, Carlos discovers he has a gift of clairvoyance--he can see what's happening to other detainees, including the torture Cecilia endures. So he sets out to give remaining family members hope, to challenge the vile government official (Lesser) responsible, and to rescue Cecilia if he can.

Surely Lawrence Thornton's award-winning novel grappled with these strong issues in a much more evocative way than this heavy-handed film! Hampton is a fine screenwriter who frankly doesn't have the skills to bring this kind of material to the screen, completely missing the whimsical-heartbreaking tone this kind of story requires. His direction is choppy and awkward, edited so harshly that we barely get a sense of each scene. And the script never convinces us of its central idea (that Carlos' imagination saves him). Banderas and Thompson give their all to these underdeveloped characters; both are superb as people struggling to remain sane in unthinkable circumstances. Yes, Thompson is a bit miscast as a Latina, but she's a good enough actor to pull it off. And there's fine support from Dolera and Canals (as Carlos' assistant). But Hampton is far too quick to create a schematic villain (complete with evil henchmen), reducing a complex situation to a simplistic movie plot. Then he dares make a tasteless and rather corny comparison to World War II and Auschwitz (with Wood and Bloom as Jewish refugees) that actually belittles the situation in Argentina! It's maddening that the film is so weak, because there's a touching and seriously important story here that should have been told with power, honesty and humanity. But all three of these things are missing here.

Lynne Gornall, Wales: "I agree that this is a film of great merit and whose reviews are difficult to agree with. Our family read metaphor and allegory into the scenes - that the film is about survival, memory (which we saw as the point about the elderly couple depicted) in the scenes & imaginings - not heavy handed, clumsy or awkward at all." (20.Feb.05)