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The Room Next Door (now on Netflix) finds Pedro Almodovar contemplating mortality again. His own mortality? Perhaps – it’s not quite as on-the-nose as 2019’s Pain and Glory, where he cast Antonio Banderas as a filmmaker struggling with the physical and psychological aches and pains of age. But Room – based on Sigrid Nunez’s novel What Are You Going Through – is absolutely a deep dive into the inevitability of death, starring Tilda Swinton as a terminally ill former war correspondent and Julianne Moore as the close friend who’s essentially holding vigil. Notably, this is Almodovar’s first feature-length English-language film, and while it marks a departure of sorts for the Spanish all-timer of an auteur, it’s also so very distinctly Pedro.
The Gist: Ingrid (Moore) is utterly terrified of death. So much so, her latest book is all about it. I don’t think it helped anything – no demon appears to have been purged during its writing – but it put her on a somewhat kismetic path toward an interaction with the Grim Reaper. See, an old friend turns up at a book signing and tells her that their dear mutual Martha (Swinton) has cancer. Ingrid and Martha have one of those fell-out-of-touch/where-has-the-time-gone friendships where they weren’t separated by conflict or animosity, but the many distractions and preoccupations of life. Ingrid drops by the cancer center and it’s like no time has passed at all; they warmly embrace and speak openly and honestly about themselves. Friendship is sometimes absolutely like this.
When they were in their 20s, Martha and Ingrid worked together as magazine writers. Martha came into her own as a war correspondent for The New York Times, and Ingrid became a successful author. They grew apart but surely followed each other’s work. They speak of the good old days and catch up on each other’s lives, as you do. The onus of reflection is understandably on Martha, since her ovarian cancer is inoperable. Flashbacks detail how teenage Martha (Esther McGregor) fell in love with a nice guy (Alex Hogh Anderson) who returned a damaged man from fighting in the Vietnam War. They had a daughter Michelle, unseen here, and Martha’s relationship with her is the subject of much regret. They’re estranged, mostly due to Michelle’s bitterness over never knowing her father, who knew of the pregnancy but disappeared from their lives and died in a bizarre incident dramatized in a dreamlike flashback sequence.
Martha’s cancer experience has been a curious and curlicued (and Almodovarian?) one: She was prepared to die. But experimental treatments were encouraging, buoying her hope. And then they stopped working. The cancer spread and she was given at most a year to live and more grueling chemotherapy awaits. Ingrid routinely visits her old friend, giving her an ear and flowers and gentle cheek kisses and general companionship. But Martha can’t bear the idea of living as a shadow of herself during her final months. She tells Ingrid she acquired an illegal euthanasia pill “on the dark web” and intends to take it – but she doesn’t want to die alone. She wants someone “in the room next door” when she does it. And she wants Ingrid to be that someone. Doesn’t she have closer friends than Ingrid? Yes, but they want no part of this. Ingrid shouldn’t, either, what with her near-paralyzing fear of death. But true friendship isn’t always roses and reminiscence and pecks on the cheek, is it?
What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Almodovar setting a film in New York City – complete with varying degrees of neurotic New Yorkers, too – is akin to Woody Allen’s later-career jump from Manhattan to Barcelona and Paris.
Performance Worth Watching: Swinton endows her character with a prickly, yet fully sympathetic sensibility that lets us into her mind just enough to give us insight, but not give away all her secrets. It’s a perfectly modulated and eccentric performance on par with some of her best roles.
Memorable Dialogue: Martha’s assertion: “Cancer can’t get me if I get me first.”
Ingrid’s wisdom: “There are lots of ways to live inside a tragedy.”
Sex and Skin: None.
Our Take: The Room Next Door pulls off something amazing: It’s a film about death, but it’s not maudlin or depressing. I interpreted it as the assertion that life is a beautiful, beautiful curse. Ingrid’s assertion about living inside a tragedy comes in a scene with a fatalist character smartly played by John Turturro – Damian, a lover she once shared with Martha, albeit not at the same time, mind you – an academic who lectures about the climate crisis and cannot abide by his offspring bringing more children into a dying world. And here Almodovar asserts that death is inevitable, but so is life. Are you going to look at a gorgeous burst of wildflowers and lament that they’ll inevitably wither and fall to the ground, or appreciate their beauty, temporary as it may be?
The film finds Almodovar working within the gray area between optimism and pessimism, where hope and fear sometimes spar and sometimes embrace. It’s a story about friendship and commitment, but it’s ultimately about control. Why else would our protagonists be writers, builders of narratives? As a journalist, Martha can’t control narratives, she can only report them, and is therefore more willing to accept the reality of death. As a novelist, Ingrid enjoys omniscience, and therefore must come to grips with her inability to control her own real-life narrative.
But The Room Next Door falters a bit in its character development – ever the accomplished and empathetic performer, Moore brings what she can to a woman who’s a bit thin on the page and reciting some occasionally clunky dialogue, despite the story unfolding primarily from her perspective. We sometimes wonder exactly who she is, and Moore fills in some of the blanks with the way she intuitively carries herself in the role. It’s enough to render meaningful Ingrid’s experience with death, her willingness to get terrifyingly close to it and to contend with her dear friend’s wishes, reasonable or otherwise. It’s a significant emotional risk for Ingrid, and Almodovar finds a way to address the weightiness of the subject matter without crushing her – or us – with it.
The director also finds a way to subvert some of the norms of his usual tone and method: His preoccupation with sex is here replaced with the unique intimacy of two old friends who know each other very well, and are very much aware of the potential discomfort of their uncharted-waters situation, to the point where they point-blank address it like the adults they are. And par for Almodovar’s course, these smart, intuitive, intellectual women within an exquisitely modulated melodrama, addressing it while garbed in colorful wardrobes, lounging in vibrant spaces, wrapping their deep-red lipsticked lips around succulent strawberries and grapes the size of golf balls. (The fresh fruit in this movie, oh god, the fresh fruit.) The beauty surrounding Ingrid and Martha’s suffering is an indelible piece of the film’s thematic intent. To not recognize it would be to grossly misread this lovely, moving film.
Our Call: The Room Next Door wrestles with life’s most difficult questions in a gently moving and profound manner, and is as elegantly directed and acted as we’d expect from this level of elite talent. It’s not quite as vibrant and engrossing as Almodovar’s best work, but it’s still a lovely and thoughtful achievement. STREAM IT.
John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
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