Many of us find it frustrating to watch the justice system repeatedly fail. Most people are also very familiar with hyperfixation on certain topics. So, when these two traits intersect, things get weird but interesting in the psychological crime thriller Red Rooms.
Kelly-Anne (played by Juliette Gariepy) finds herself overly invested in the high-profile case of a serial killer who targeted young women. While it’s clear that he’s guilty, the judicial system rarely holds bad men accountable for their crimes. So Kelly-Anne sets off on a journey through the darkest corners of the internet to find the damning piece of evidence that will put this child killer away for good.
Red Rooms’ Take on the Criminal Justice System
Red Rooms is a slow burn but makes important stops as it gets to its final destination. Aside from the obvious and understandable jaded look at the criminal justice system, it also holds the media responsible for making monsters celebrities. However, one of my favorite things it does comes via the character Clémentine (played by Laurie Babin).
Clémentine believes Ludovic Chevalier (Maxwell McCabe-Lokos) is innocent even though she doesn’t know him and has no reason to doubt the obvious truth of the matter. However, she has chosen to defend and support this man accused of kidnapping, torturing, and murdering teenage girls for an online audience. This character pisses me off because she’s possibly the most realistic. She’s every R. Kelly fan, Fox News Pundit, or Twitter Devil’s Advocate who refuses to see people suffering as she sets up a house in her delusional world.
A Turning Point: Confronting the Truth
That is until Kelly-Anne shows her a video of what the man she’s trying to turn into a martyr really does. That is when she becomes a different person and has to truly sit with the impact of the monster’s actions. This is also when she has to face the person she’s become. It made me think of the many times POC call out an issue, but Karens refuse to listen until there’s dashcam footage on Facebook.
Why Red Rooms Stands Out as a Courtroom Drama
While the Canadian psychological thriller might not be for everyone, the way the subject matter is handled is something that should be studied. Writer and director Pascal Plante never takes the gross sensationalist way out by showing what has been done to these girls. Instead, we hear descriptions from lawyers. Or we see the reactions of people who have to watch it. I much prefer this to the gratuitous torture porn that we typically distract from the bigger conversations to be had. This is possibly one of the things I appreciate most about the film.
Is Red Rooms Worth Watching?
That being said, the movie was too slow for me overall. It also felt like it lacked something, as all of Kelly-Anne’s conflicts are internal, and never communicated to the audience. Which leaves us wondering why she does anything she does. It also left us hanging out for a minute before we knew if she was on the side of the victims or the perpetrator. We don’t need her to have a random person to spell everything out for, but we do need to know what our protagonist is for and against, if nothing else.
Filling in so many gaps about her motivations is my biggest hurdle with the movie. It makes it feel like something is missing, as if we only had parts of our hero’s journey. Perhaps that’s part of the voyeur aspect and is intentional, but wasted on me because I’m a heathen. It may not bother others as much as it bothers me. Either way, there is something here that makes it worth the watch.