'Red Dot', Netflix's surprising Swedish thriller

Netflix recently released the Swedish thriller Red Dot. A film is full of suspense and unexpected twists. Here we review it without spoilers.

Among the Netflix stenos for this month of February is Red Dot, a thriller directed by Alain Darborg that takes place in Sweden. It is a film that, in short, takes advantage of the mystery and tension that it expertly builds, although not without leaving some loose ends. For Darborg, who is also a co-writer with Per Dickson, this is his first feature film, after an important career on television.

The Red Dot synopsis tells us: "When Nadja gets pregnant, they try to rekindle their relationship by traveling to northern Sweden for an excursion, but soon their romantic trip turns into a nightmare."

Here we review what we found Netflix's Red Dot, without spoilers.

Circles

The title Red Dot tells us not only about the threat that suddenly looms over the protagonists but also about its structure. And, in this film, we follow the story of a young married couple made up of David (Anastasios Soulis) and Nadja (Nanna Blondell). As the synopsis says, the couple will go on a trip but things soon become scary and painful.

Red Dot begins with David's graduation and his marriage proposal to Nadja shortly after the ceremony. From that emotional introduction we are located a year and a half later, in which the infatuation with commitment seems to have vanished with the grief of everyday life. In the midst of these coexistence problems, David wants to surprise his wife and put a little walk and rest between them. This is why they go on an excursion to a town north of Stockholm with the intention of seeing the Northern Lights. From their arrival, the locals will be cold and somewhat hostile, almost immediately turn to racist and threatening expressions.

In the Red Dot trailers, we are warned that during that trip, a red dot appears at night, apparently from a weapon and they have to escape from there. The frozen and desolate landscapes, as well as the impeccable photography of the film, soon catch us in the suspense of that frantic flight of our protagonists. Things get ugly, they get complicated and by the end, many other things will be revealed to us that will make us rethink what we have been seeing.

'Red Dot', an enveloping triller

One of the things that works best in Red Dot is that it tests us as an audience. Well, with the twists in the script it makes us rethink our conclusions, but also our prejudices. It is very interesting how the same story can be seen from different points and how nothing is absolute.

Although the twists in Red Dot are very surprising, the truth is that they almost escape feeling like a trap. Of course, it achieves tension during most of the film and towards the end, things do not improve. On the contrary, everything becomes dark and painful, although, as we said, it leaves some loose ends. Especially with secondary characters who enter and leave the scene without much explanation of their intentions.

As we said above, Red Dot is circular for several reasons and one of them is that it begins with what we will see in the closing and from there it starts to unravel its story. Towards the end we will find the place where we started, to close cryptically. In this Netflix premiere movie, we will see on the screen a set of good decisions that, most of the time, will keep us on the edge of the couch.

Red Dot premiered on February 12 on Netflix and is now available to all subscribers of the platform.