SHREWSBURY FILM SOCIETY
| Director | Pedro Almodóvar |
|---|---|
| Country | Spain |
| Year | 2024 |
Pedro Almodóvar’s The Room Next Door arrives with the quiet confidence of a filmmaker stepping into a new language without abandoning the sensibility that has defined his work for decades. Although this is his first English–language feature, it feels unmistakably his: a drama shaped by colour, memory, and the emotional intricacies of friendship. It won the Golden Lion at Venice, a milestone that surprised some observers, yet the film’s blend of intimacy and stylisation shows a director working with assurance.
The story centres on Ingrid, a bestselling author played by Julianne Moore, who learns that her long–estranged friend Martha, a war correspondent portrayed by Tilda Swinton, is dying of cancer. Their reunion is warm and immediate, as if the intervening years have dissolved. Both once dated the same man, played by John Turturro, and their shared past becomes a foundation for the days ahead. Martha, weary from treatments and determined to avoid a painful decline, asks Ingrid to accompany her to a rented house in upstate New York where she intends to end her life. She wants Ingrid in the room next door, close enough for comfort but distant enough to maintain deniability if the authorities become involved.
The premise is stark, yet the film is not a chamber piece confined to a single location. Almodóvar expands the narrative with scenes of the women reconnecting in New York, encounters with their former lover, and a series of flashbacks that illuminate Martha’s life as a reporter and the emotional scars she carries. Her stories range from the tragedy of a high–school sweetheart to the strained relationship with her daughter, who later appears in scenes that shift the film’s emotional balance. These recollections unfold with the urgency of someone racing against time, and they gradually overtake Ingrid’s perspective before the two women’s stories merge again.
The film adapts Sigrid Nunez’s novel What Are You Going Through, and its literary origins show in the dialogue, which is reflective and hyperliterate. Some viewers may sense a certain stylisation in the English–language delivery, but the performances ground the material. Moore plays Ingrid as a woman trying to be strong for her friend while wrestling with her own fear of death and her uncertainty about the role she has agreed to play. Swinton, by contrast, gives Martha a restrained dignity, her composure occasionally cracking to reveal the pain beneath. Both performances are described as luxuriously self–aware, and together they form the emotional core of the film.
Visually, The Room Next Door is rich with Almodóvar’s signature design. Contrasting hues of red and green dominate the palette, with Ingrid’s cool blue apartment set against Martha’s green–tinged home. The director’s long–standing fascination with colour remains undimmed, and the film includes striking details such as the bold outfit Martha chooses for her final day and a tinted image that evokes a snow globe. These choices echo the heightened visual worlds of earlier Almodóvar films such as All About My Mother and Talk to Her, even as this new work adopts a quieter emotional register.
Thematically, the film explores mortality, friendship, and the ethics of assisted dying. Martha’s decision is presented without melodrama, and the film acknowledges the legal and moral complications that arise. A warning from Turturro’s character about the dangers of involvement foreshadows the police scrutiny that later intrudes on the women’s plan. The story also gestures toward a wider sense of societal decline, with characters reflecting on a world that seems increasingly sick. Almodóvar has spoken publicly about supporting euthanasia rights, and the film’s treatment of the subject is philosophical rather than polemical.
Despite its gravity, the film contains moments of warmth, including scenes of the women watching old movies together, among them John Huston’s adaptation of The Dead. These interludes underscore the film’s interest in how art shapes our understanding of life’s final chapters. The Room Next Door also resonates with Almodóvar’s recent explorations of ageing and memory in works like Pain and Glory, though here the emotions are more restrained, the tone more contemplative.
Some critics have noted that the film feels less expansive than Almodóvar’s earlier, more exuberant works, yet its quietness is part of its design. It is a meditation on how we accompany one another through the most difficult passages of life, and on the courage required to face death with clarity. The film suggests that saying goodbye is something we must all prepare for, and that the measure of friendship lies in the willingness to be present when it matters most.
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