The Summit

The Summit (La cordillera, 2017) is Santiago Mitre's political thriller, available to watch online on iFILM. At a mountain resort in Chile, the presidents of Latin America gather to argue over oil, alliances and pressure from Washington. Argentina's seat belongs to Hernán Blanco, a man whose real hand nobody has managed to read.

Ricardo Darín carries the film almost entirely on his face: a courteous smile that gives away nothing. While the fate of a continent gets haggled over behind closed doors, a private catastrophe closes in from another direction — his daughter (Dolores Fonzi) is on the verge of collapse, and a buried family secret threatens to surface at the worst possible moment. The political and the personal start grinding against each other. Elena Anaya and Christian Slater round out the cast.

Mitre pulls off a rare hybrid here: the cold procedure of backroom diplomacy suddenly veers into near-supernatural territory, where it's hard to tell reality from the paranoia of power. Darín is at his finest — the calmer he plays it, the more uneasy you feel. One for viewers who like smart, uncomfortable political drama with no gunfights or chases. Stream The Summit (2017) online on iFILM.