Take a bickering, middle-aged couple, put them in a tiny car, get the driver drunk out of his mind, add some horrendous summer traffic and a deranged killer escaped from jail, and you've got Cédric Kahn's "Red Lights," a movie I recommend to no one.
Combined, Jean-Pierre Darroussin (Antoine Dunant) and Carole Bouquet (Hélène Dunant) have appeared in over 100 films. They are more than capable actors, and the tension between them is terrifically unpleasant to watch. I felt as if I was already watching a horror film before the put-up husband stopped in a bar for his third double whiskey.
When Antoine re-emerges, his wife is gone, having left only a note that she's catching the train. She does indeed make the train, but unbeknownst to Antoine, she has the unfortunate luck of meeting the deranged killer. Later in the evening, as chance has it, so does Antoine. Both characters are traumatized by their individual experience, but the film suggests that perhaps a little catastrophe – Antoine being held at gun point and Hélène getting raped -- will bring this couple closer together. Couples therapy would probably have been less painful.
The screenplay is based on the novel by Georges Simenon. Claude Debussy's beautiful "Nocturnes" plays as shots of traffic fill the screen.
