Film Review: Red Rooms
RED ROOMS (LES CHAMBRES ROUGES) is a French-Canadian psychological thriller from writer and director Pascal Plante. A switch into the crime genre from his previous sports drama, NADIA, BUTTERFLY, shows he is more than just promising if RED ROOMS is anything to go by. The film arrives on VOD from UTOPIA on October 4 and is still screening in theatres in the US.
We are introduced to the film in a starkly bright white courtroom; the colour and layout are an unnerving opposite to the mahogany Hollywood spaces we are familiar with. In this intense space, we are introduced to shocking crimes in a long, uncut sequence. This sets the mood for the whole film. If you go in expecting a classic courtroom drama or investigative procedural, what you will get is so much more. Leave all genre expectations behind when watching RED ROOMS; it is taking cinema in a whole new direction, leaving the crime genre irrevocably changed.
Kelly-Anne (Juliette Gariépy) wakes up so early that she has to sleep next to the building to secure a seat at the high-profile trial of Ludovic Chevalier. The man has been charged with the torture and murder of three teenage girls, two of which he filmed and sold on the dark web. Her motives for this are completely obscure. By day, she models; by night, she works in front of her computer and has a penchant for online poker. She finds herself bonding with a fellow voyeur, momentarily breaking her out of her loneliness while also witnessing the emotional decline of the victims’ families. As the proceedings continue, it becomes increasingly difficult for Kelly-Anne to maintain the psychological and physical balance between her normal life and her morbid fixation.
What is so riveting about this film is its characters. The idea that you never really know anyone’s intentions is a part of life and scary to watch. Our protagonist keeps her cards close until she reveals her hand right at the end of the film. RED ROOMS is one of the best the mystery genre has to offer. RED ROOMS asks us to bond with a few characters with unreliable motives, making it all the more exciting. The opening scene in the courtroom gives us at least one villain, but the film has the audience uncomfortably questioning how many more there might be.
Relying heavily on its outstanding performances, Juliette Gariépy is magnetic and subtly terrifying. Laurie Babin, as Clementine, is passionate and bounces off of Kelley-anne’s more detached enigma. Together, Gariépy and Babin are perfect!
A mystery thriller told via faces lit by computer screens- and the most tense keyboard clicks you will ever hear. We’ve seen plotlines that revolve around the dark web before, but Red Rooms takes these familiar points and totally dismantles them. On the one hand, the film intimately shows us the after-effects on loved ones through the media and courtroom semantics. On the other hand, RED ROOMS captures up close the taut and creepily clinical experiences of dark web activity.
RED ROOMS will be one of my top films for 2024, without a doubt. Once audiences experience it, I’m sure they will feel the same. And that unplugged getaway you’re always planning but can never find time to give up the internet? RED ROOMS will give you the motivation to finally go through with it.
RED ROOMS arrives on VOD from distribution company UTOPIA; it will be available on Apple TV starting October 4. However, the film is still screening in select US theatres right now and throughout the month. For an official list of places and times, visit https://redrooms.official.film/
“Leave all genre expectations behind when watching RED ROOMS; it is taking cinema in a whole new direction, leaving the crime genre irrevocably changed”
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