How Long Is “Jar City”?

In 1974, a young Icelandic girl met a grim fate at the hands of a murderer -- and the crime was never solved. So begins celebrated director Baltasar Kormákur's procedural thriller Jar City (or Mýrin), adapted from Icelandic writer Arnaldur Indridason's 2000 best-seller, Tainted Blood. In the present day, the jaded and exhausted detective Erlendur (Ingvar E. Sigurdsson) begins to investigate a link between that notorious unsolved crime and the homicide of a local thug, Holberg (Thorsteinn Gunnarsson). Erlendur also struggles in his private life with an overwhelming problem: the drug addiction of his own pregnant daughter, Eva Lind (Agusta Eva Erlendsdottir). Meanwhile, Örn (Atli Rafn Sigurdarson), an employee at a DNA-mapping lab, reels from the death of his own daughter, who suffered from a brain tumor. In time, the two men's lives will intersect in a myriad of ways that neither can even begin to foresee -- and the motivation for Holberg's original crime will become resoundingly clear.