Red Rooms
| Red Rooms | |
|---|---|
 Film poster | |
| French | Les chambres rouges |
| Directed by | Pascal Plante |
| Written by | Pascal Plante |
| Produced by | Dominique Dussault |
| Starring |
|
| Cinematography | Vincent Biron |
| Edited by | Jonah Malak |
| Music by | Dominique Plante |
Production company | Nemesis Films |
| Distributed by | Entract Films |
Release dates |
|
Running time | 118 minutes[1] |
| Country | Canada |
| Languages | French English |
| Box office | $145,362[2] |
Red Rooms (French: Les chambres rouges) is a 2023 Canadian psychological thriller film written and directed by Pascal Plante.[3] The film stars Juliette Gariépy, Laurie Babin, Elisabeth Locas, Maxwell McCabe-Lokos, Natalie Tannous, Pierre Chagnon and Guy Thauvette. The film's production was first announced in November 2022.[4]
Red Rooms premiered at the 57th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival on July 4, 2023,[5] and had its Canadian premiere as the opening film of the 2023 Fantasia Film Festival.[6] It was theatrically released in Canada on August 11, to acclaim from critics.
Plot
[edit] | This article's plot summary may be too long or excessively detailed. (September 2024) |
In Montreal, Canada, fashion model Kelly-Anne attends the trial of accused murderer Ludovic Chevalier who broadcast the killing of three young women. Chevalier is accused of doing so via a "Red Room", an urban legend of live murders being broadcast on the Tor network. He pleads not guilty and appears unaffected in court.
After the first day at trial, Kelly-Anne begins to dig at the case, and sees that the mother of one victim, Camille Beaulieu, has her email credentials exposed on the dark web. She is then able to log in to the mother's email and find her Wi-Fi password to her home, having already found her address via news footage.
While Kelly-Anne is outside the courthouse waiting in line, she meets Clementine, who is fixated on Chevalier being innocent. Clementine and Kelly-Anne become friendly, but they are very different. Clementine spent most of her money coming to Montreal from a small town over a hundred kilometers away, and is obsessed with Chevalier to the point of delusion. Kelly-Anne speaks little about the case and pays strict attention to her looks and her strictly regulated diet. She explains to Clementine that she is able to afford her high-rise apartment by online gambling.
Kelly-Anne also shows Clementine her digital assistant, Guinevere. Kelly-Anne explains that the AI and Wikipedia learning that these digital assistants have are data loggers, and she has custom fitted hers so it can't be hacked.
Clementine starts to stay at Kelly-Anne's apartment. One night, Clementine calls into a late-night TV show, where they are calling Chevalier a murderer and saying he should be killed. The TV hosts call her crazy and Kelly-Anne consoles her by buying her things and teaching her squash, which is Kelly-Anne's way to relax.
The trial progresses and the two are there daily, until the videos of the killings are to be played in court. The judge explains that only the jury and the families will be allowed to view the first two victims’ videos, and that the final video of victim Camille Beaulieu is unavailable. Outside the court room, Clementine becomes suspicious of Kelly-Anne when she mentions details from the videos, and demands to see the footage once she realizes Kelly-Anne has access to it. Despite her reservations, Kelly-Anne shows her the videos, which are so jarring that Clementine falls into a state of shock, jarred by the content and Kelly-Anne’s emotionless response to it. She stops attending the trial and returns home, ending her friendship with Kelly-Anne.
Kelly-Anne continues to dig into the case and enters a mysterious chat room where she is told she must "prove" herself before a live bidding.
Kelly-Anne goes on to visits Camille Beaulieu's home, accessing her Wi-Fi and her smart home locks. After this, she becomes more and more paranoid that she is being watched.
Before one of her photoshoots, Kelly-Anne receives a call from her manager saying her client canceled, and that while she tried to defend her, Kelly-Anne’s behavior with regard to the trial had been too edgy and bizarre. She becomes obsessed with victim Camille Beaulieu, even dressing as her to court in her school dress and donning fake braces. The accused murderer Chevalier moves for the first time in front of the court, looks at her, and waves good-bye.
Her modeling manager calls to break her contract over the courtroom stunt, and Kelly-Anne goes back to the chat room and says she is finally "ready." After confirming her identity, they tell her that bidding will be the following night. As she prepares for the bidding, she becomes increasingly paranoid and feels scared that someone is following her home. It is revealed that the item being auctioned is the snuff film of the final victim, Camille Beaulieu. Kelly-Anne drains all her Bitcoin stocks and begins playing a final game of poker on the dark web to get more money in preparation for the bid. The bidding starts, and quickly becomes feverishly high, pushing Kelly-Anne to put all her Bitcoin into the poker game, where she wins enough to make the final bid, ending the auction. To alleviate the stress of the bid, she tries to ask Guinevere to tell her a joke. The joke it chooses makes Kelly-Anne feel paranoid, and she destroys the device.
The snuff film appears on her desktop and after finally watching it, she begins to completely dissociate. She wears the blonde wig and costume from court, and after tapping her apartment complex’s security cameras, leaves her apartment and goes to Camille Beaulieu's home. Inside, she poses on the victim’s bed while taking pictures of herself. She then leaves a flash drive on the nightstand of the victim's mother.
Days later, the local news reports that an anonymous source gave the footage of the final victim's murder, wherein the court was able to further identify Chevalier as the murderer. Chevalier changes his plea to guilty. The news then goes to a never-before-seen interview with a "ex-groupie", which is Clementine. She says she is unable to understand how she was so blind and only wishes the best for the victims' families.
Cast
[edit]- Juliette Gariépy as Kelly-Anne
- Laurie Babin as Clémentine
- Elisabeth Locas as Francine Beaulieu
- Maxwell McCabe-Lokos as Ludovic Chevalier
- Natalie Tannous
- Pierre Chagnon
- Guy Thauvette as Judge Marcel Godbout
Reception
[edit]Critical response
[edit]On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 95% of 69 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 8/10. The website's consensus reads: "Anchored by Juliette Gariépy's superb portrayal of self-destructive obsession, Red Rooms is a haunting and timely trip down a particularly morbid rabbit hole."[7] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 81 out of 100, based on 14 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".[8]
Awards
[edit]References
[edit]- ^ "Red Rooms (18)". British Board of Film Classification. August 14, 2024. Retrieved August 15, 2024.
- ^ "Red Rooms". Box Office Mojo. IMDb. Retrieved October 7, 2024.
- ^ Tim Dams, "‘Red Rooms’: first trailer for Pascal Plante’s Karlovy Vary competition thriller". Screen Daily, May 30, 2023.
- ^ Pierre-Marc Durivage, "Juliette Gariépy et Laurie Babin dans Les chambres rouges". La Presse, November 9, 2022.
- ^ Bruno Lapointe, "«Les chambres rouges» de Pascal Plante en ouverture du festival Fantasia". Le Journal de Montréal, June 8, 2023.
- ^ Zac Ntim, "Pascal Plante’s ‘Red Rooms’ And Nicolas Cage Pic ‘Sympathy For The Devil’ Among Titles Set For Fantasia Festival". Deadline Hollywood, June 8, 2023.
- ^ "Red Rooms". Rotten Tomatoes. Fandango Media. Retrieved September 18, 2024.
- ^ "Red Rooms". Metacritic. Fandom, Inc. Retrieved September 15, 2024.
- ^ "Red Rooms / Les chambres rouges". kviff.com. July 2023.
- ^ Erik Pedersen, "Fantasia Film Festival Awards: ‘Red Rooms’ Takes Best Feature & Two Others; ‘Femme’ A Double Winner – Full List". Deadline Hollywood, July 30, 2023.
- ^ "Québec Cinéma dévoile les finalistes aux PRIX IRIS 2023". CTVM, November 14, 2023.
- ^ Marie-France-Lou Lemay, "Les films Les chambres rouges et Madeleine récompensés". La Presse, April 6, 2024.
- ^ Charles-Henri Ramond, "Les chambres rouges primé par l’AQCC". Films du Québec, March 4, 2024.
External links
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