TIFF Review: Backyard

An impassioned yet prosaic fact-based melodrama, Backyard registers undeniable impact by providing a dramatically sound, emotionally satisfying partial solution to a mystery that remains unresolved in the real world. Trouble is, this all-too-neat wrap-up may cost director Carlos Carrera points with the very audiences most likely to appreciate the verisimilitude that prevails throughout much of this picture about the unsolved murders of hundreds of women over the past several years in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. Still, the drama -- recently selected as Mexico's foreign-language film Oscar submission -- should enjoy a warmer reception than Bordertown, the underachieving 2006 Jennifer Lopez vehicle that covered the same territory. You can read my Variety review here.