Leonora Anne Mint’s review published on Letterboxd:
(There's some kind of odd parallel to be drawn here, what with this movie about how to deal with tragic deaths and how to honor the dead sharing a title with a more recent film starring a man who just died tragically and senselessly. I'm not the person to make that parallel eloquently, but felt the need to comment on it.)
The Green Room is a powerful and obviously very personal film for Francois Truffaut, who stars here as a man who has a strong connection with his dead loved ones, and seeks to honor them in some constructive way with the help of his new (and only) living friend, a young woman played by Nathalie Baye. There are a couple scenes that get pretty loud, obvious, and less dynamic than I expect from Truffaut, but most of it is very solid, and in its best moments it is a pretty transcendent experience. This is essentially a feature-length version of the last paragraph of The Fault in Our Stars, espousing the idea that love for the dead is equally valuable and should be respected. It's an unusual but poignant idea, and this movie is committed to exploring it in a totally honest way. Truffaut obviously agrees with the character he plays on some level, giving his performance and the entire movie around him a sense of conviction, but he also makes it clear that the character is flawed and wrong about some things (such as his bitterness towards his dead ex-friend, or his view that a widower shouldn't get remarried). I may just be a sucker for movies that are mostly straightforward and then actually earn a few poetic, abstract scenes of beauty; or I may just be a sucker for movies where two friends with different but connected viewpoints endlessly spitball on an intriguing topic. Either way, this is one of the most successful film's I've ever seen on the subject of death, and one of Truffaut's most singular creations.