The Blue Room
Sundance Selects | Release Date: October 3, 2014 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
73
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 27 Critic Reviews
Positive:
20
Mixed:
7
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
90
Los Angeles TimesSheri LindenOct 9, 2014
What tantalizes is the way the story moves between their private passion and their public shame, the way then and now become synchronous. Amalric navigates the shifts with a lapidary precision. Read full review
90
The New York TimesManohla DargisOct 2, 2014
Mr. Amalric, who directed this dark, delectable, shivery tale, adapting it from the Georges Simenon novel, sets its uneasy, dank mood with energetic economy. Read full review
90
Village VoiceAlan ScherstuhlOct 1, 2014
Co-writer/director/proudly nude star Amalric cuts everything to the quick: Most shots have the feel of still photos, the camera firmly planted, and the movie always hustles us to the next, back and forward in time, the effect part Resnais and part staccato Kodak slideshow. Read full review
89
Austin ChronicleMarc SavlovOct 22, 2014
The Blue Room is mesmerizing, psychologically complex, and, at the very end, viscerally devastating. They don’t make them like this much anymore, but they should. Read full review
88
Philadelphia InquirerTirdad DerakhshaniOct 31, 2014
Adapted from the devilishly clever 1955 novel by master crime author Georges Simenon, The Blue Room is a dazzling deconstruction of the mystery genre that turns its conventions on their heads. Read full review
88
RogerEbert.comScout TafoyaOct 10, 2014
The crime at the heart of The Blue Room eventually becomes clear enough, but the people involved remain mysterious. Read full review
83
IndieWireBoyd Van HoeijMay 26, 2014
In telling his story, Amalric is greatly aided by his ace cinematographer, Christophe Beaucarne, whose images pick up on a great many tiny but telling details, as if life were a mosaic composed of an almost infinite number of parts that are all equally important for the bigger picture. Read full review
80
Total FilmJames MottramJan 21, 2017
Amalric jigsaws the pieces, conjuring a taut, tense air of Chabrol as he does. Read full review
80
EmpireDavid ParkinsonSep 5, 2016
Taut, tense and teasing, this fascinating exercise in screen storytelling keeps viewers guessing whether the prime suspect might just be a victim. Read full review
80
Arizona RepublicKerry LengelOct 8, 2014
It is a quiet but intense and closely observed piece of work. Read full review
80
The Hollywood ReporterJordan MintzerMay 26, 2014
While this may be the actor-director’s most polished feature yet, it’s far from a traditional suspense movie. Read full review
80
The TelegraphTim RobeyMay 26, 2014
Everything’s told in shards, and Amalric does very well to create a sense of emotional continuum amid all the procedural detail. His own performance is fantastic, jittery and dishevelled. Read full review
75
Portland OregonianJeff BakerOct 24, 2014
Amalric plays up the ambiguity and brings it all home in a tight 75 minutes, a time that would have impressed Simenon, who wrote and revised novels in less than two weeks. Read full review
75
St. Louis Post-DispatchJoe WilliamsOct 23, 2014
Directed by and starring Mathieu Amalric, it’s a deceptively low-key riff on a Hitchcock whodunit. It’s both sexy and inscrutable, a cold-blooded puzzler to the very end. Read full review
75
Washington PostMichael O'SullivanOct 16, 2014
As a storyteller, Amalric is a master of manipulation, first leading the audience in one direction and then another. The Blue Room is a hall of mirrors, reflecting every detail but making it hard to know where you stand. Read full review
75
Slant MagazineChuck BowenSep 3, 2014
The film abounds in guilt and grief, reveling in a general sense of hopelessly broken social connection. Read full review
70
SalonAndrew O'HehirOct 1, 2014
Amalric and cinematographer Christophe Beaucarne structure much of The Blue Room around Julien’s bewildered and increasingly disheveled face, as he tries (and fails) to understand the people around him. Read full review
70
The New YorkerAnthony LaneSep 29, 2014
The great virtue of the movie is its length: a fat-free seventy-six minutes. Read full review
67
The PlaylistJessica KiangMay 29, 2014
It’s a meticulous and tightly coiled cautionary tale, but it’s hard to imagine any of its characters having life outside the narrow confines of its stagy plot, or the edges of its carefully composed frames. Read full review
63
Boston GlobePeter KeoughOct 16, 2014
Though engrossing and aesthetically admirable, at times the humorless artiness verges on absurdity. It’s hard to take a film too seriously when plum jam and Bach’s “Chaconne” vie for equal cinematic significance. Read full review
60
New York Daily NewsElizabeth WeitzmanOct 2, 2014
The mystery is pretty low-key and the resolution somewhat disappointing. But Amalric is mesmerizing and the film’s taut, chilly tone leaves us unnerved. Read full review
60
Time OutKeith UhlichSep 30, 2014
For all its surface effectiveness, however, The Blue Room never quite makes that intangible leap into greatness. It’s a phenomenally executed exercise that, like its protagonist’s memory, is too wispy for its own good. Read full review
60
The DissolveScott TobiasSep 29, 2014
As it settles in, the thrilling chutzpah of The Blue Room’s opening salvo gets lost in the intricate curlicues of the plot, which take away much of its illicit rush. Read full review
60
CineVueJohn BleasdaleMay 26, 2014
As you'd expect from an actor-director of Amalric's pedigree, the performances are brilliant throughout and Mathieu himself has a wonderful eye for the telling tick and/or the revealing gesture. Read full review
60
The GuardianXan BrooksMay 26, 2014
Amalric's handling is cool, studied and perhaps a little self-conscious. But he does a good job of showing how adultery is a noose that tightens at the throat even before an actual crime is committed - at which point the film grows altogether less interesting. Read full review
60
VarietyGuy LodgeMay 26, 2014
While this appropriately brief film unravels its enigma at a tidy clip, it gathers neither enough heat, nor quite enough of a chill, to linger in the bones. Read full review
58
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerOct 3, 2014
Amalric throws in flashbacks and flash-forwards between bedroom and courthouse (yes, there’s a murder), and I was reminded again why I prefer my noirs in the hardboiled American style rather than tricked up with all this faux Alain Resnais-style filigree. Read full review
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