In The Blue Room, Mathieu Amalric directs and stars in an updated version of the 1964 Georges Simenon novel about adultery and death in a small town.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Oct 10, 2016

An unfolding police investigation leaves us guessing until the final moment just what exactly happened when an illicit love affair turned bad.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Sep 11, 2016

On the evidence here, former Bond villain Amalric is every bit as accomplished a director as he is an actor.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 9, 2016

Bursting with melancholy insight.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 8, 2016

Taut, tense and teasing, this fascinating exercise in screen storytelling keeps viewers guessing whether the prime suspect might just be a victim.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 1, 2016

A cool tale of sex and deception; a brief, tightly wound story whose contours only gradually become clear.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Aug 6, 2015

The ultimate triumph in what Amalric has done is to show us all the different forces that can be at work in an affair.

| Jan 1, 2015

A dazzling deconstruction of the mystery genre that turns its conventions on their heads.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Oct 31, 2014

In "The Blue Room," we don't learn anything new about infidelity's destructive, alluring power, but we're reminded all over again in forceful fashion.

| Oct 25, 2014

If anything, it's a backhanded testimony to the plodding effectiveness of detail-minded detective work and the slow grinding of the bureaucratic justice machine.

| Original Score: 1/5 | Oct 24, 2014

'The Blue Room" is a tight little look at love gone wrong, something of a stripped-down French "Gone Girl" without the surprises.

| Original Score: B | Oct 24, 2014

It's an accomplished film, if a bit cool and tidy; you wish there were a little more to it.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Oct 23, 2014

The pleasure of a whodunit generally derives from trying to figure out who done it, but in the case of this arty, terminally obscure French mystery, most of the story has already transpired before one can even piece together what was done.

| Oct 23, 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.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Oct 23, 2014

"The Blue Room" is the kind of film that demands to be seen more than once.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Oct 23, 2014

"Blue Room" demonstrates that, as a director, Amalric has begun to master the medium. Now he needs to work on expanding his palette.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Oct 16, 2014

As a storyteller, Amalric is a master of manipulation, first leading the audience in one direction and then another.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Oct 16, 2014

"The Blue Room" feels like only two acts of a three-act story. With a whole other movement and 25 more minutes, this could have been an entirely satisfying picture.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Oct 16, 2014

Tense, intriguing and will keep the viewer off-balance.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Oct 9, 2014

It is a quiet but intense and closely observed piece of work.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Oct 9, 2014