If you’re the type of person who defends subtitled movies, don’t use The Blue Room (Le Chambre Bleue) as your case in point. A French thriller about two adulterous lovers who are put on trial for murdering their significant others, The Blue Room offers a did-they-didn’t-they scenario that manages to get less interesting with every passing minute.

Inexplicably possessing an 89% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes at the time of writing, the movie is described as “a beguiling cinematic puzzle unfolds in an elliptical style that keeps the audience guessing every step of the way” by the marketing powers at IFC. The movie does keep you guessing, but it utterly fails to deliver on its promise.

The Blue Room starts off strong enough, presenting vague indications of a murder that has recently happened. Director and star Mathieu Amalric does a good job of mixing present-day scenes with flashbacks to keep you wondering what exactly happened, and who did it.

The problem is, all the jumping around simply glosses over the fact that there just isn’t much to the story. The film devolves into a bland courtroom drama, with Amalric’s character on trial for murder. We’re subjected to excruciatingly long interrogation scenes that amount to nothing, and a story that fades as time progresses.

The third act is shockingly dull, and the climax, if you can call it that, confirms just how much of a waste of time this movie is. Strangely, based on what I’ve read of Georges Simenon’s novel, the source material is significantly more interesting than what this adaptation offers.

Eighty-nine percent of critics like The Blue Room, which tells me one of two things: either I watched an entirely different movie than the rest of them, or this is one of those critic-only movies that general audiences will hate. I’ll go with the latter.

Review by Erik Samdahl. Erik is a marketing and technology executive by day, avid movie lover by night. He is a member of the Seattle Film Critics Society.