A Common Crime review – chilling ghost story with a social conscience

A career woman is haunted by a teenager she could have saved from death in this masterful political thriller from Argentina

Guilt and the return of the repressed are behind this elegant, disquieting and impressively acted political ghost story from Argentinian film-maker Francisco Marquez. Cecilia (Elisa Carricajo) is a sociology professor and single mother of a little boy, Juan (Ciro Coien Pardo); she is very successful, though on edge about her recent application for an academic promotion. Cecilia gets on well with her maid Nebe (Mecha Martinez) but is made very uncomfortable when Nebe brings round her teenage son Kevin (Eliot Otazo). Kevin seems dour, unsmiling, perhaps with learning difficulties.

In the middle of a stormy night, Cecilia is awoken by a terrifying banging at the door, preceded by an eerie dreamlike voice murmuring Cecilia" in her ear. Peering through the shutters, she can see it is Kevin and is too scared to open up. The next morning, she sees on the news that Kevin's body has been found in the river, with protesters alleging he was chased down and killed by the police - one of the state's common crimes" directed at the poor. Cecilia can't bring herself to confess to Nebe that she could have helped her son, or tell any of her colleagues. And so she begins to crack under the terrible strain of maintaining this secret along with the day-to-day tasks of her sophisticated and successful intellectual life, believing Kevin has come back to haunt her.