Directed by Maite Alberdi, In Her Place is a historical drama and Chile’s official entry for Best International Feature at the upcoming 2025 Oscars. It’s now streaming on Netflix.
The Gist: Based on the true story of Chilean writer María Carolina Geel, In Her Place follows her trial after she murdered her lover at the Crillón Hotel. Mercedes, the paralegal for the judge on the case, becomes infatuated with Geel’s life and takes every opportunity to spend time in her shoes after she’s given the keys to her apartment.
What Will It Remind You Of?: The premise alone may remind you of The Talented Mr. Ripley, though this film is much less sinister or daring than that.
Performance Worth Watching: Elisa Zulueta is the central figure in the film as Mercedes and also yields the strongest performance. The film’s subtleties hinge upon her many wordless scenes as she lives in Maria’s apartment and tries her life on for size, imagining what it would be like without the trappings of her own domestic life.
Memorable Dialogue: “What was he to you?” Mercedes asks Maria, trying to discern a motive for the writer’s actions. “He wasn’t mine,” she answers simply, inviting Mercedes even deeper into the writer’s psyche.
Sex and Skin: This internal drama doesn’t have any sex or skin.
Our Take: A period piece, In Her Place is most enamored with the role of women in society. At home, at work, and in private — how is a woman supposed to act? When Mercedes is introduced to Maria, she isn’t concerned about the fact that she just killed her lover in cold blood, in public. She’s interested in the fact that Maria is unmarried, childless, and living a creative life. When she gains access to Maria’s home, Mercedes finally has an outlet for the many frustrations she has with her own life: money, a snoring husband, unruly kids, and a cramped apartment.
Mercedes doesn’t exactly take over Maria’s life, but she steps into her clothes — literally. She finds any excuse to spend time at the luxurious sun-filled apartment, to spray Maria’s perfume, to wear her red lipstick. But when her husband finally catches on to where she’s been going, he’s infuriated and reminds her that this isn’t her life. Mercedes remarks that she’s drawn to the tranquility of the apartment, that there is no noise here, and that’s one of the main problems with the film — the lack of noise in the form of story during Mercedes’s rendezvous makes the film drag whenever we’re in the apartment.
Mercedes and Maria have a few face-to-face interactions, but In Her Place doesn’t capitalize on these to draw parallels about their yearnings. Maria is nothing more than a symbol and Mercedes isn’t developed quite enough to understand why she’s so drawn to this symbol. There are hints at an interest in photography and overt suggestions that she’s unhappy with her “womanly” duties at home — late in the film, Mercedes’s husband gifts her a floor polisher, echoing a gift from Maria’s late lover that ended up in my lake — but Alberdi’s film doesn’t do enough work to express that internal journey.
By the film’s end, Maria is pardoned and returns home, forcing Mercedes to give up her double life. When the two lock eyes in the final scene, it’s unclear what the film wants us to feel. Relief? Jealousy? Understanding? This POV, through the eyes of an admirer rather than the juicier main subject of Maria, is clumsy in delivering any kind of lasting message.
Our Call: SKIP IT. Despite a solid leading performance, the film doesn’t deliver on drama or intrigue.
Radhika Menon (@menonrad) is a TV-obsessed writer based in Los Angeles. Her work has appeared on Paste Magazine, Teen Vogue, Vulture and more. At any given moment, she can ruminate at length over Friday Night Lights, the University of Michigan, and the perfect slice of pizza. You may call her Rad.