'In Her Place' is based on a real incident that took place in Chile in 1955. A popular Chilean author, commits a crime of passion and is awarded a controversial minimal three-year sentence and then a presidential pardon before it is served.
The film explores the growing fascination of Mercedes, the secretary to a senior judge - with the glamorous killer on trial. The killer's apartment is everything Mercedes' own shabby home is not: it is spacious, beautiful and, most alluringly 'silent'. Mercedes makes repeat visits: at first, to water the plants, but later, to luxuriate in the killer's glamorous lifestyle — she reads her books, dresses in her expensive clothes, cooks meals in her swanky kitchen — the apartment becomes a refuge from Mercedes' own 'imperfect' life. Mercedes’ obsession remains under control; her double life has no significant consequences. However, her sorrow when it falls apart as the killer receives presidential pardon, is palpable at the end.