In Cold Light 2026 Movie Review
In Cold Light arrives with the kind of pedigree that should make it an easy win: a respected international director making his English-language debut, and the talented Maika Monroe front and center, quite literally, considering she was plastered all over my Regal app like the movie itself knew she was the selling point. And honestly? She is. Unfortunately, she’s also carrying almost the entire film on her back.
Fresh out of prison, Ava (Monroe) attempts to reclaim her former drug empire, only to be framed for a murder that sends her spiraling into a familiar web of violence, betrayal, and unresolved family trauma. On paper, it’s a gritty crime thriller with emotional depth. On screen, it’s a film that keeps hinting at meaning without ever doing the work to earn it.
We open with Ava strung out, buying drugs moments before a police raid. Smash cut two years later: she’s released from prison and immediately struck by unexplained anxiety, vomiting as she changes into her street clothes. It’s a moment clearly meant to signal transformation, trauma, or fear, but the film refuses to clarify what it’s actually saying.
The bigger issue is that the film never convincingly establishes Ava as a drug lord, or even as a credible threat. We’re told she once ran things, but nothing in the opening or her post-release arc supports that idea. So when she sets out to “reclaim her throne,” it lands with a thud. There’s no sense of power lost, no aura of danger reclaimed, just a character moving from scene to scene because the plot needs her to.
That problem extends to nearly everyone around her. Ava’s attempt to reconcile with her family goes south quickly, placing her in the crossfire of a hit she’s then blamed for. From there, she’s on the run, stumbling across a trail of bodies, most of which are killed off-screen. Any potential impact from these deaths is completely deflated because the characters were never established to begin with. For my gamer friends: they don’t feel like people so much as NPCs, introduced, dispatched, forgotten.
The film features two antagonists, neither of whom ever feel remotely threatening. Bob Whyte, a crooked cop, exists mostly as a concept rather than a character; we never spend enough time with him to understand his motivations or menace. Then there’s Claire, positioned as the true power player behind the region’s drug operation. She appears briefly in what amounts to a “meeting of the minds” scene that serves no real purpose beyond setting up the ending. Because the film never bothered to lay proper groundwork, it has to scramble for a conclusion and this is what we’re left with.
And then… it just ends. After a flat, uninspired reveal that should feel seismic but instead feels obligatory.
That’s the real tragedy of In Cold Light: there are pieces here that could have worked. Maika Monroe remains compelling even when the script lets her down. Troy Kotsur, as Ava’s deaf father, brings quiet emotional weight to a role the film barely explores. Helen Hunt is solid, as always, but underused. Director Maxime Giroux shows flashes of visual confidence, but the storytelling never matches the atmosphere.
In the end, In Cold Light mistakes mood for substance and ambiguity for depth. It wants to be a gritty, character-driven crime thriller, but without proper setup, meaningful relationships, or earned stakes, it collapses under its own aspirations.
