Trouble Every Day [Limited Edition] 4K Ultra HD Review

Estimated reading time: 11 minutes

A Visceral, Unsettling Descent

Claire Denis’s 2001 film, Trouble Every Day, is not one for casual viewing. It’s a difficult, deliberately slow drop into a universe where the boundaries between eroticism, love, and terrible violence get obscured beyond recognition. It is still a strong and very unsettling experience over two decades after more of an atmospheric mood piece than just storytelling.

A Slow-Burning Decline

The concept creates an unnerving scene. With his new wife, June (Tricia Vessey), American scientist Shane Brown (Vincent Gallo) comes to Paris reportedly for their honeymoon. Shane, however, is preoccupied with a frantic hunt for his former coworker, Léo Semenau (Alex Descas), and Léo’s mysterious wife, Coré (Béatrice Dalle). Denis gradually reveals knowledge to create an environment thick with unspoken fear and simmering tension. The “trouble” of the title is a condition, a disease, hiding under the surface of desire, not a single occurrence.

Sensory Bombardment and Visual Poetry

Working once more with the amazing cinematographer Agnès Godard, Denis produces pictures that are both eerily lovely and deeply troubling. Paris seems alienating, chilly, and oddly empty. The camera focuses on textures—skin, blood, architectural elements—to produce a heightened sensory experience. Moments of terrible, visceral brutality are rudely set alongside this visual poetry. Earning its position inside the contentious New French Extremity movement, the movie does not flinch from the vivid repercussions of its main idea. Far from stylized horror clichés, the violence when it flares is gut-wrenching, primal, and profoundly unpleasant.

Passion and Consumption

Fundamentally, Trouble Every Day is a terrible investigation of desire run terribly wrong. The film employs its main affliction—an uncontrollable, cannibalistic desire linked to sexual passion—as a strong, repulsive metaphor. It investigates the darker, possibly damaging, side of intimacy, obsession, and the terrible loss of control in our most basic drives. Long after the credits roll, concerns about the nature of love, possession, and the terrible potential inside of average people remain. Tindersticks’ eerie, melancholy score perfectly emphasizes this widespread yearning and approaching doom.

Haunting and Intense Performances

The actors’ performances are suffused with obvious anguish and hopelessness. Vincent Gallo captures Shane with a disquieting mix of detached intensity and almost restrained inner turmoil. As Coré, Béatrice Dalle is magnetic and terrifying, personifying primitive, wild desire with disturbing conviction. Alex Descas brings Léo, a man stuck by love and terror, a great weariness and desperate loyalty. Tricia as Shane’s neglected wife Vessey offers a crucial, progressively confused and weak counterpoint.

One Experience that Polarizes

Trouble Every Day purposefully presents difficulties. Its slow and captivating tempo emphasizes ambience and thematic resonance over traditional story structure or simple explanations. The story might seem enigmatic, therefore need the observer’s complete interpretation and focus. Its debut at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival was naturally met with vehement condemnation, walkouts, and accounts of viewers fainting—evidence of its raw capacity to elicit controversy and distress.

Verdict on the Film

Trouble Every Day is not for everyone. Graphic, conceptually weighty, and structurally eccentric, it is. Still, dismissing it as nothing but provocation misses its terrible might. Claire Denis has created an original and memorable movie experience: a beautifully stunning, intensely philosophical, and really terrifying reflection on the terrible potential hiding inside human longing and connection. A film that penetrates your skin and leaves a trail of anxiety, rejecting simple solutions. Though not pleasant in a conventional sense, it’s a major, difficult project that rewards viewers prepared to interact with its unsettling beauty and face its somber truths about love and the self. Approach with an open mind for its unique, unrelenting vision but also with caution.

The Video

Trouble Every Day comes to 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray from a new restoration in a 1.85:1 HEVC 2160p (4K UHD) Dolby Vision encodement. The 35mm source looks very good in this transfer. A fine layer of organic grain remains consistent throughout, and the subtle Dolby Vision grading gives the image excellent color nuance and shadow details. There is a little bit of pop in highlights in a scene with fire, but nothing gimmicky.

The Audio

The bi-lingual English-French soundtrack is included in DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 and DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 stereo. The 5.1 mix is wide and atmospheric and a good extension into the low end. The surrounds have lush atmospherics and the Tindersticks music encapsulates you with a warm and dynamic sound.

The Supplements

Limited Edition Contents:

• Limited edition hardbound slipcase featuring new art by Ash Weaver-Williams
• Limited edition 60-page collector’s book featuring new writing on Trouble Every Day by Anna Bogutskaya, Amy C. Chambers and Laura Mee with an introduction by Peter Sloane, editor of ReFocus: The Films of Claire Denis
• Limited edition set of facsimile lobby cards

• Bonus Features:
• Audio Commentary by Lindsay Hallam
• Audio Commentary by Claire Denis & Agnès Godard
• Pleasures of the Flesh – Interview with Alice Haylett Bryan (1080p; 00:25:32) — new interview with New French Extremity expert Alice Haylett Bryan
• Material Vampires and the Defeat of Science – A visual essay on the film by Virginie Sélavy (1080p; 00:23:15)
• Trailer (1080p; 00:01:48)

The Final Assessment

A visceral, slow-burn that hits hard with its unflinching violence and beautiful cinematography, newly awakened in this 4K restoration from Eureka’s Masters of Cinema imprint, Trouble Every Day is not for the faint of heart, but it is truly worth watching.

Trouble Every Day [Limited Edition] is out in the UK on 4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray August 18, 2025 from Eureka Entertainment’s Masters of Cinema

Details

• BBFC cert: 18 
• Studios & Distributors: ARTE | Arte France Cinéma | Canal+ | Centre national du cinéma et de l’image animée | Dacia Films | Iris Group | Kinetique | Messaouda Films | Rézo Films | Rézo Productions | Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen | Eureka Entertainment
• Director: Claire Denis
• Written By: Claire Denis | Jean-Pol Fargeau
• Run Time: 101 Mins.
• Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
• Video Format: HEVC 2160p (4K UHD)
• HDR Format: Dolby Vision (HDR10 Compatible)
• Primary Audio: Bilingual English-French DTS-HD MA 5.1
• Secondary Audio: Bilingual English-French DTS-HD MA 2.0 Stereo
• Subtitles: English (for French Dialogue Only) | English SDH | Director Commentary
• Street Date: 18 August 2025