'The Blue Room'

Out Now!

Julien (Mathieu Amalric, who also writes and directs) enjoys a heated affair with a married woman, Esther, where they meet regularly in a particular room at a local hotel, the titular Blue Room. Esther brings out all the passion in him that his wife doesn’t but he isn’t unhappy at home, he loves his daughter, and he seems to hate himself for the forbidden fruit he feels compelled to pluck.

Esther is much less conflicted, almost casual about the affair and convinced that they should break off their respective marriages by any means. However, as they ponder on life and love we are intercut with Julien being questioned in a police station and in a prison, by what appears to be a psychologist, at some future date, and we are soon aware that something terrible has happened and much more than a simple story of forbidden love is about to unfold before us.

The film moves at a near perfect pace, the tension high throughout as the mystery unfolds, never dragging or rushing us into any one particular moment so we have time to form our opinions and learn the facts before the final reveal comes out. If anything it’s more like we’re viewing this from a juries perspective, we only learn so much and only the characters themselves know the real truth.

Even though the story does conclude I’d say we’re left with three possible truths to choose from, and whilst inclined to believe Julien’s version of events because we’ve been follow him most closely, it’s intriguing to think that our faith there could be misplaced. The real question we’re left with at the end is whether or not we can pass judgement based on the limited information we have because it’s just not possible to know any better.

I really enjoyed this film, to some degree it does feel like a lot of set up and no pay off simply because we never see the “truth” as such. Once the characters are doing something that can’t be verified by a witness or some element of physical evidence the movie loses track of them momentarily, and you might think that would be frustrating but it really works to the films betterment. There’s a very real world feel to how we might consume such a story via news coverage and word of mouth and be forced to make a detached judgement.

It’s difficult to go into too much detail without revealing spoilers and you definitely need to see this film with as little knowledge of what’s going to happen as possible. That can be a problem with mystery heavy films such as this. Whether or not it would hold up to a second viewing I can’t say but I kind of suspect not. But never mind, some films don’t hold up to a first viewing, and if you want to be gripped with some intense beautifully constructed character drama then this is the film for you.

Review by Kristian Mitchell-Dolby.

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