Producer: Dominique Dussault   Director: Pascal Plante   Screenplay: Pascal Plante   Cast: Juliette Gariépy, Laurie Babin, Elisabeth Locas, Natalie Tannous, Pierre Chagnon, Guy Thauvette and Maxwell McCabe-Lokos   Distributor: Utopia

Grade: B+

It’s the widespread public fascination with serial killers, rather than the killers themselves, that’s the focus of Pascal Plante’s chillingly austere courtroom drama.  The accused is Ludovic Chevalier (Maxwell McCabe-Lokos), charged not only with brutally killing three girls, but broadcasting the murders to paying customers via a “Red Room,” a site on the darkest web.  The bodies were found buried in his backyard. 

The evidence against him is laid out in coolly methodical fashion by the prosecutor (Natalie Tannous) in her opening statement, while in his rebuttal the defense counsel (Pierre Chagnon) mounts an assault on its circumstantial character.  Francine Beaulieu (Elisabeth Locas), the mother of Camille, the one victim whose murder video has not yet been found, looks on anxiously from the gallery.

Watching from coveted chairs in the Montreal courtroom are two women who become central to the narrative.  One is Clémentine (Laurie Babin), a Chevalier groupie, an excitable, scraggly sort who’s travelled to the city after deciding that’s he’s innocent, an opinion she’s eager to share even when unasked.  The other is Kelly-Anne (Juliette Gariépy), a striking, almost preternaturally poised fashion model who’s honed her hobby of playing internet poker to a fine, and lucrative, art.  She’s obsessed with the case, though it’s not obvious why and her glacial demeanor is totally at odds with Clémentine’s emotional volatility.

Nevertheless Kelly-Anne takes pity on the poor girl’s straitened circumstances—her scrambling to find a place to stay, her lack of money for meals.  She invites Clémentine to stay with her for the duration of the trial, and the two get to know one another in Kelly-Anne’s beautiful but sterile apartment, boasting a gorgeous view of the city but only minimal furnishings.  As host she introduces the girl to her companion, an AI-generated assistant of her own devising she calls Guinevere that becomes a source of amusement to them both, and watches in quiet horror as Clémentine calls in to a TV program in which a panel are discoursing on Chevalier’s obvious guilt, only to be treated with disdain.

Meanwhile Kelly-Anne’s focus on the trial becomes truly intense.  She’d already used her computer expertise to locate the Beaulieu home, as well as the footage of the two murders that was excluded from public view in court, which she shares with Clémentine, who points out that the murderer is masked and could be anyone.  She goes to court one day made up to look like Camille in her school uniform, catching Chevalier’s eye but so outraging the customers of the modeling firm that she’s fired.

And now she goes further.  She searches the dark web and discovers that an auction is planned for the footage of Camille’s murder.  She amasses as much as she can from her online poker games to earn a spot among the bidders, and then sets out to win the footage.  Whether she’ll succeed, and what she intends to do with the footage if she does, form the basis for the film’s tense final act.

Plante presents Clémentine, played by Babin with unaffected certainty, in simple strokes, but Kelly-Anne is another matter entirely.  Her motivations are kept obscure behind Gariépy’s icy, undemonstrative exterior as she delves further and further into the sinister recesses of the internet that could provide evidence to convict or exonerate Chevalier.  Is she a groupie of a different sort, a would-be crusader or simply an obsessive determined to know the truth while keeping it hidden?  Plante and Gariépy keep us guessing until the very end, and even then they offer no simple explanation for her character and actions. 

The result is both a cool, cerebral thriller that establishes a suspenseful vibe early on and maintains it to the end without resorting to cheap tricks, and an astutely observed study of a relationship that develops between two utterly different women.  Cinematographer Vincent Biron’s images possess a metallic sheen that sets off Laura Nhem’s elegant production design and Renee Sawtell’s costumes, which distinguish expertly between Kelly-Anne’s sophisticated wardrobe and Clémentine’s simple one.  Editor Jonah Malak accentuates Plante’s probingly deliberate pacing to enhance the suspense, while Dominique Plante’s eerie score adds to the unsettling mood.

This discreet, understated film is about a monster, but it unnerves you the old-fashioned way—with suggestion rather than the crude horror devices so common nowadays.