The Room Next Door

The Room Next Door feels like Pedro Almodóvar stepping into uncharted territory. It's his first English-language film, and while it's undeniably beautiful, it left me wishing for a bit more substance beneath the surface. The story focuses on Martha, a war photographer facing terminal cancer, and Ingrid, a novelist whose friendship with Martha has grown distant. Almodóvar brings his signature style-bold colors, symbolic spaces, and carefully crafted visuals-but somehow, the emotional depth he's known for doesn't quite land.

Color plays a huge role here, especially red. Almodóvar uses it as a recurring theme-it's in Martha's outfits, Ingrid's scattered notes, and the carefully chosen decor of the house where most of the story unfolds. Normally, his use of red bursts with life and passion (Volver, anyone?), but here it feels muted. Instead of adding emotional weight to Martha's struggles with agency and mortality, it seems more decorative than symbolic, like it's there to remind us we're watching an Almodóvar film but not much else.

The house, though, is stunning. It's this sleek, modernist marvel of icy blues and greys, with pops of red, yellow, and green breaking through the sterile perfection. It's a powerful metaphor for Martha and Ingrid's fragile connection-a place that feels both protective and isolating. But as much as I loved how the house looked, I kept waiting for it to feel like a real part of the story. It's a backdrop with so much potential, but its symbolism doesn't dig deep enough to make the emotional stakes feel real.

Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore are, unsurprisingly, excellent. Swinton gives Martha a quiet fierceness, and Moore portrays Ingrid with a mix of regret and tenderness. But the dialogue between them sometimes falls flat-it's too heavy on exposition and not raw enough to pull you in. Their interactions often feel more like scripted exchanges than heartfelt conversations, which makes it harder to connect with their journey.

Ultimately, The Room Next Door is a feast for the eyes, but its heart doesn't quite match its visual brilliance. It's beautiful, yes, but it feels like it's searching for the emotional depth that made Almodóvar's earlier films so unforgettable. I respect the ambition, but as the credits rolled, I couldn't help but miss the vibrant storytelling of his past works.

I was curious to see what Pedro Almodóvar would do differently in his first non-Spanish-language film, built around two of the most talented actors working today. The answer, alas: it's disappointing. There are many ways in which "The Room Next Door" lacks what makes Almodóvar's work so distinctive - the spontaneity, the sense of improvisation, the comic timing, the fizzy ensemble work -- but this film's main fault, as I see it, is that it's just plain overwritten, something that is rare in his previous work.

The screenplay (which he is credited with writing) was adapted from a novel by Sigrid Nunez that I have not read, but it sounds like vast swatches of the dialogue were lifted verbatim from it, with much that is ponderous and stilted, slowing down and emptying the film, where Almodóvar's work is usually characterized by lapidary dialogues and madcap forward movement, plunging you into the characters' world with little exposition - as a viewer, you are kind of just there, hanging on for dear life, and figuring out relationships and social context as you go, grabbing at what you can. Even in films that deal with dark subjects ("Pain and Glory" or "Bad Education" come to mind), the action and its background unfold in convincing ways (even when these are actually crazy if you stop and think about them) that draw on our intuition and empathy and depend only marginally on extended expository narration.

Here, it is the opposite: the characters talk and explain on and on, with a few awkward flashbacks to establish context. Little is left to our imaginations. So, while some of the usual Almodóvarian hallmarks are there, particularly in the exquisite use of saturated, cunningly coordinated color and in the tastefulness of many of the sets and costumes (here with lots of lovely still lifes of flowers and fruits), these are reduced to props - they don't serve to tell the story and overwhelm you into accepting the reality of his crazily artificial visual worlds in the way they do in most of his films. And the computer-generated backdrops of New York feel completely artificial and thus become meaningless. Almodóvar's films certainly have plots, often quite convoluted (which is part of the fun), but they don't feel plot-driven, even when they are. "The Room Next Door", on the other hand, is all about its plot, and it is the weaker for it.

With talents like Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore (plus the estimable John Turturro) in front of the camera, there have to be, and are, some great, often very moving, moments - how could there not be, especially given the plot's central premise and the way it both reinforces and strains a longstanding , close friendship in its final days? But the wordiness of this screenplay undermines Swinton, in particular. Her awesome strength lies in her powerful, enigmatic presence and in her understatement. In my unscientific assay, she speaks as much dialogue here as she has done in at least the last three or four of her films (the ones I've seen, that is) combined. Think of her stunning performances in another fairly recent film about the fraught relationship between two women, "The Eternal Daughter" (2022), in which she plays, devastatingly, both an aging mother and her middle-aged daughter. The relationship between the two is subtle, shifting, complex, rich and involving - and yet so little of that is based on explicit dialogue. Or take her terrific performance in "Memoria" (2021), the enigmatic masterpiece of cosmic messaging by one of the greatest of all non-verbal directors, Apichatpong Weerasethakul. These are the kinds of films in which Swinton flourishes, going all the way back to "Orlando" (1992). (She did make "The Human Voice", speaking an extended monologue by Jean Cocteau - remarkable, and showing her versatility, but not characteristic of her.) In "The Room Next Door", she is required to deliver page after page of stilted - downright unnatural - prose in ways that are uncomfortable to watch and that are alienating, at least for this viewer. (This is all made worse by the upper-class, educated-American accent Swinton is required to employ. It's impeccably observed, as you would expect from her. But, as is so often the case with actors speaking lines in accents that are not their own, you sense that a lot of the energy that should be going into the interpretation is instead being directed into making sure they get the accent right. That is definitely the case here, especially since so many of her monologues are delivered in exceedingly tight shots.)

So I speak in sadness, as someone who's been an unconditional admirer of Almodóvar going back to the 1980s. His films have always been based on his own very peculiar, very specific vision of a Spanish culture that may never have existed in reality, but in which he makes us want to believe. Stepping out of that into English and into such a different, and less compelling, American world appears to have been a mistake. Let's hope that Almodóvar, as he pursues his amazing, extended, and rich career, will quickly go back to being himself, not the unnatural, wordy, uncompelling version that we are given here. This one, I fear, was a mistake.

Seeing an Almodovar movie in English is a bit weird. This is such a quintessential Spanish director, that the lack of Spanish (apart from one short sentence) seems to take away an essential element from the movie. But even in English, Almodovar stays Almodovar, just like Woody Allen stayed Woody Allen in his French film.

I think this is one of the best movies he has made. It's beautiful, it's touching, it's meaningful. Not many films combine those three qualities. It seems as if with every new movie he directs, he gets closer to the purest film making. In this case, it's a story about two friends who both have to come to grips with death. Martha is dying of cancer and wants euthanasia, Ingrid is an old friend who is afraid of death but nevertheless agrees to accompany Martha in her last days.

This sounds as if the film is very depressing. Let me assure you: it is not. Far from it. There are far more happy moments than sad ones. Even Martha embraces life in her last moments, because she wants to spend them in a stunningly luxurious villa in the woods.

Almodovar once again creates a world of beauty, full of colour and aesthetics. His sets are, as usual, carefully designed. But this is also a very moving film, showing how valuable good friendships can be and how, even in death, dignity and respect are essential values.

Almodovar includes many references in his film. Martha and Ingrid watch movies by Buster Keaton and John Huston, and they go to a cinema where a Rosselini movie is playing. But the most obvious influence, I think, is Ingmar Bergman. Not only is the story reminiscent of Bergman's Persona, but the whole movie has a Bergman-esque feeling. Just like many Bergman movies, it relies heavily on dialogue, tackles themes like death and religion, and has a limited number of characters. The difference: Almodovar adds some Spanish warmth and colour.

It's really sad that this great theme and these great actors were used to make this mediocre, banal and almost demented movie.

The story is good, though I'm guessing the original book does it a better service, but the writing and directing of the dialogue is so bad I first thought it was ironic. Sadly it wasn't. The actors save what can be salvaged with really good performances, but every time they talk you find yourself waiting for them to stop. And most of the movie is dialogue.

There are beautiful shots and great lighting, and a lot of colours borrowed from Edward Hopper, to which the characters even point to not so subtly.

I'm really sad this movie wasn't better.

Despite its serious theme (Euthanasia) the film is supremely boring, disconnected and not emotionally involving at all. I wonder how it could win the Golden Lion at Venice Film Festival. The interconnected stories just don't make any sense (see the gay Carmelite friars interpolation). The character played by Turturro is flat and uninteresting. The script sounds like political propaganda and it doesn't come from the heart. Come on Pedro, you can do better than this... I'm not absolutely sure that Tilda Swinton was the best choice for this role but since The Human Voice she seems to feature in all of Almodovar's English language mpvies. There have been many films made on euthanasia (such as Amenabar's "Mar Adentro") that are certainly better worthy of notice than this frankly mediocre sample.