Red Light

Red Light is a European crime drama split between Belgium and the Netherlands, starring Carice Van Houten (Black Book, Game Of Thrones), Maaike Neuville and Halina Reijn (Black Book). Set in the sex clubs and brothels of Amsterdam and Antwerp, the series follows their characters Sylvia Steenhuyzen, Evi Vercruyssen and Esther Vinkel as their lives become entwined in the violence of the sex industry.

The series kick of with Detective Evi Vercruyssen (Neuville) being assigned the case of a murdered prostitute. The woman had worked in a club run by Sylvia (Van Houten) and her abusive lover Ingmar (Geert Van Rampelberg). Meanwhile, in the immediate aftermath of her father's death, Esther's (Reijn) husband goes missing. This has something to do with the club.

Esther is an opera singer with an aristocratic heritage, Evi is working class police and Sylvia is a prostitute and pimp. Despite their very different backgrounds, Red Light focuses on the similarities between the three women. They all have dysfunctional home relationships, cope with loss of people close to them, and are faced with issues regarding children and reproduction. This is reinforced by a number of transitions between shots of the women when they are doing the same things, such as making phone calls, but in different contexts from each other.

The analogues and interconnections between the women are what make Red Light more interesting than the standard dead-woman-drives-the-plot crime drama. The relationships between the the three central characters are well realised, especially by Van Houten and Reijn who've worked well together before. Red Light has high production values and is cinematographically competent. It make some good use of varying colour pallets and the sets are put together well. The first episode has a very nicely executed tracking shot of Sylvia and Ingmar walking round their club.

With the three female leads and a female director (Anke Blondé) for half of the episodes, I was hoping to see a significantly different take on this sort of crime drama. Unfortunately it has the same old hackneyed characters and contrived plot twists. It has the standard alcoholic cop with family problems who falls off the wagon just for this one case and the cop who is least likely to betray the investigation who then does. The series also takes a long time to get going. It doesn't really get into gear until episode five. The first four episodes feel like prologue.

Red Light is perfectly enjoyable if you ignore the slow start but it isn't anything special.