The Blue Room (2014)

Don't Believe the Hype

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

Not sure how, but this is easily one of the best movies all summer. Multiple levels of funny, never takes itself seriously, super colorful, and creative.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

Reading that the movie is a thriller based on Georges Simenon's novel, I expected to see a good French adaption of the book. However, there was no suspension and no thrills in what Mathieu Amalric did with a good story. Even the episodes shown on TV channel ID are more intriguing and more entertaining. I am always wondering why the French movie makers tend to mess up their stories. Somebody can call it an intelligent movie, but it looks more like a pretentious and muddled change of scenes. Simenon's story had a great potential, but Mathieu Amalric succeeded to kill it on the screen with both his script and his direction.

Just watched this movie & thought it interesting enough to read the original novel from whence it came when it's published in English in early 2016. What cracks me up in all these French Flicks is the Male Stars are always these little sleazy, wimpy, unclean looking weird guys and the Female Stars are always attractive, younger (and taller) women. For instance in this Flick this is exactly the case. The Mistress is attractive, probably a foot taller and 10 years younger than the Male Star. Why she repeatedly jumps in bed with this guy is a wonder to me. Maybe I'm just envious, but really? It must just be annoying for French Actresses to always have to play lovers, wife's, mistresses to these Frogs. On the other hand it must be great to be a French Man! I'd be really curious if any female reviewers really find the Male Star of this movie attractive or worthy of their attentions.

Mathieu Amalric isn't one to shy away from a risky project—has anybody seen the film where he plays a shrink and Benicio Del Toro's a Blackfoot WWII vet with PTSD? Here he and his real-life partner, Stéphanie Cléau, co-star in a stripped-down 75' adaptation of a Simenon story of erotic obsession and justice gone awry. The fine performances and the film's time-shuffling structure help maintain a high level of suspense at least past the halfway mark, though it seems to me that Amalric and Cléau, who also wrote the script, might have thrown a little too much of Simenon's backstory out with the bathwater. The plodding inquiry that begins even before we know a crime has been committed certainly explains Julien's (MA's character's) air of glum fatalism through the second half of the film, but the script's intense focus on the two lovers doesn't prepare us for the final courtroom scene, in which a character we've barely seen before steps into the spotlight. (I'm planning to watch again to test the hypothesis, suggested by some online reviewers, that the crime the protags are charged with was committed by someone else…)The courtroom scene has a nightmarish quality, like one of Hitchcock's "wrong man" films; the trial itself seems like an open-mic session where gossipy townsfolk step up to air their gripes about the defendants—one witness dismisses Julien's stylish modernist house as a "crappy little shack." There's certainly a disconnect between Simenon's view of blind, blundering justice and our own no doubt idealized police procedurals and courtroom dramas; I agree with other reviewers that Julien would have excellent grounds for appeal on the basis of blatant judicial bias and ineffective counsel.

The Blue Room is beautifully acted and Mathieu Amalric delivers another of his cinematographic jewels. First off, I totally disagree with other reviewers claiming this movie to be an offshoot of Fatal Attraction. Second, you'll be watching the wrong movie if your intend is gazing over explicit sex scenes. This is not an erotic movie.This being said - SPOILERS ALERT - Watch the movie first before you continue reading this review.It's the story of two lovers falling into a diabolic trap. We come to know that Julien and Delphine grew up in the same town where they also attended the same school. Delphine was in love with Julien but he never noticed her other that she was taller than him. Eventually, after school, they both went their own ways. Delphine married a doctor but his mother always disapproved the marriage claiming Delphine to be after her sons' money. The mother lives in the same house of her son and Delphine. Delphine runs a pharmacy from that house as well. Julien is married has a daughter and a successful career. Years later....Julien is driving and sees Delphine on the side of the road struggling to replace the flat tire of her car with the spare. They instantly fall for each other. Fast forward.Many in town were aware of the affair and are now convinced that, for obvious reasons, the lovers eliminated their partners. The pretrial proceedings and tabloid lynching results in lawyers, courts and judges to be biased resulting in the two lovers being doomed by the time the trial starts. They clearly are resigned to the outcome of their ordeal but for different reasons. At this point Delphine is totally blinded by her romanticized love for Julien. As for Julien, he's aware that there's no way out and, therefore, indifferent to the trial. At this point, he's also convinced Delphine to be the perpetrator of the killings until, at the very end of the trial, he realizes who the real murderer is. Remember the testimony of the flamboyant red head ?