Starring: Julianne Moore, Tilda Swinton, John Turturro

Director: Pedro Almodovar

Rating: 4 stars

The Room Next Door review: When we meet our Creator – or whatever alternative theory you believe in – how many of us can look death square in the eye and bark, “Try me!” Honest to God’s truth, not much. Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar’s The Room Next Door is a hilarious, if dark, take on the gravity of death and man’s perpetual struggle to accept it in all its glory.

Martha (Tilda Swinton) is a real badass: former war correspondent for the New York Times; ambitious but broken, morally cowardly and emotionally distant… you get the drill. “We are just strangers,” she admits when asked about her daughter, conceived in a moment of absolute passion. The father, a veteran suffering from severe post-traumatic stress disorder, abandons the duo for greener pastures; it’s freeing yourself from the chains of obsessive memories to give in to them later (you’ll see). In stark contrast to this gloom is Ingrid (Julianne Moore), a successful and optimistic writer who, ironically, has just published a best-seller about death. A chance meeting with another friend makes Ingrid aware of Martha’s cancer diagnosis and she rushes to meet a friend with whom she had once shared her dreams and a lover. But Martha, still responsible for the events within her lifehas a rather terrifying deathbed request for her long-lost friend: to be in the next room when she embraces the inevitable thanks to a self-prescribed euthanasia pill. Death, in The Room Next Door, is not feared by the dying but feared by those furthest from it.

In this adaptation of What Are You Going Through (2020) by author Sigrid Nunez, Almodóvar – his first English-language release – masterfully blends humor with the simplicity of death and juxtaposes the fears of the living with the freedom of those who are about to die. perish. “I don’t have time for that,” Martha jokes when Ingrid recommends reading a big book, in a rather neutral tone. The film, through subtle metaphors implanted in the daily banality of life, mocks those who make life a colossal task that they must accomplish. This slice of life film is therefore a silent slap in the face for those who want to learn to live before living.

The Room Next Door takes a non-dramatic, almost heartfelt view of friendships and asks its viewers an overarching question: Are all relationships black and white? Should they be?

Martha and Ingrid once went on a date with the same man (a charming John Turturro), and while no one is “complaining” about this man’s performance, at least no one is bitter about it either. The duo, comprised of a fantastic Julianne Moore and a reserved Tilda Swinton, forge a beautiful friendship built on the foundations of something so heavy; and permanent, as if to show us that not all relationships in life need to follow a conventionally acceptable direction. In Almodóvar’s universe, there are no good or bad characters. They are all people with shades of gray, much like in the real world. When Martha reveals that she was never faithful to their shared lover, or when Ingrid takes that same lover back without informing her dying friend, the director does not spoil these crucial moments with condescending background music or any judgment. . The film’s characters, even in the face of adversity, are joyfully imperfect: if Martha stages a dress rehearsal of her death on Ingrid, then the latter also reveals her final wish to a third person without Martha’s knowledge. In The Room Next Door, there really are no wrong answers. For, you see, judgment, or the fear of it, is for the living and the unliving.

The film resonates not only for the lessons it subtly imparts about life and relationships, but also for the formidable actors it casts. Moore’s seemingly prim and proper Ingrid complements Swinton’s pessimistic and stoic Martha. Moore, after Still Alice, is once again faced with an illness that she can’t seem to beat, but oh boy, isn’t she winning! The talented Swinton brings her A-game for a film that demands her A-game at all times. First, she internalizes the grief of a dying mother who did not love much, if at all, then she accepts the fact that her life, like that of most others, will be half-lived, only half-lived. through facial expressions: twitching of the eyes, trembling of the lips, etc.

True to his signature style, Pedro Almodóvar keeps the women of The Room Next Door as real as possible: pretty and light, kind and relatable. The director uses various hues of brightness to channel the permanence of life. Bold red lips and a lemon yellow trench coat for death, and various shades of pastel for life. Almodóvar finally ventures into English-speaking cinema with a film – rightly so – about life and lifestyle.

In summarizing The Room Next Door, something another viewer said – who was clearly on the right mission – comes to mind. “And there you have it: we’re all dying, let’s take it easy!” » I couldn’t agree more.

This film premiered at the MAMI Mumbai Film Festival 2024.