Red Rooms (2023): review

Red Rooms (2023) is an exceptional psychological thriller from Pascal Plante. It develops a disturbing, intense story about obsession and moral decay, focusing on Kelly-Anne, played by Juliette Gariépy, and her fixation on the trial of suspected serial killer Ludovic Chevalier. Her interest in him, and the film's treatment of the cruel, illicit darknet material associated with the idea of red rooms, make this both unsettling and fascinating.

The story follows the wealthy young Kelly-Anne as she sleeps outside the courthouse to secure a place at the proceedings. She encounters Clémentine, another troubled spectator who appears to be a groupie of the accused. Their dynamic brings a chilling tension to the film and gives both performers demanding material. Laurie Babin gives Clémentine a restless nervousness and emotional instability, while Kelly-Anne maintains an almost unfeeling self-control. These apparently incompatible women become the film's disturbing central partnership.

Plante's direction has a striking visual severity. Courthouse scenes are bathed in cold light and held in a rigid, oppressive atmosphere. The film avoids explicit images of violence, making its effect paradoxically stronger. A particularly powerful sequence concerns the screening of footage of the crimes. Instead of showing us the material, Plante makes the participants' faces convey how horrifying it is. Rejecting an obvious visual shock allows a subtler, more deeply unsettling horror to emerge.

The acting is impressive. Juliette Gariépy gives an outstanding performance, making Kelly-Anne simultaneously fascinating and difficult to read. Her layered work keeps us wondering whether the fixation represents empathy, moral curiosity or dangerous attraction. The quiet tension between Gariépy's Kelly-Anne and Ludovic Chevalier, played by Maxwell McCabe-Lokos, creates an intense contrast and reinforces the film's interest in the boundaries between victim and perpetrator.

Red Rooms is no ordinary thriller and resists familiar genre patterns. It offers a bleak portrait of a society looking into human darkness through sensationalist media and digital alienation. Its disturbing atmosphere, moral questions and close attention to its protagonist's mind make it a deeply uncomfortable experience that lingers. Those willing to follow it will find an exceptional, if profoundly disquieting, film.