“The Room Next Door” (2024) is Pedro Almodóvar’s twenty-third feature film, third English language film and first English language feature length film. It is an adaptation of American novelist Sigrid Nunez’s “What Are You Going Through.” During a book signing at Rizzoli Bookstore in Manhattan (it used to be on 57th Street), Ingrid Parker (Julianne Moore) hears from a mutual friend, Stella (Sarah Demeestere), that Martha Hunt (Tilda Swinton), a former coworker at the magazine “Paper” (eye roll), friend and war correspondent, is fighting Stage 3 cervical cancer at Manhattan Memorial Cancer Center. They reignite their friendship, and Martha is determined to end her life on her terms. Suppressing an overwhelming fear of death, Ingrid accompanies her on this final journey with their former paramour, Damian Carrington (John Turtorro), in the wings ensuring that it goes well without any legal fallout for Ingrid.
There is a first time for everything. I did not enjoy an Almodóvar film. It does not help that 2024 has been a year of getting front row seats to death, swift and slow. I’m beginning to feel like the Grim Reaper or the unrevealed plot twist to the “Final Destination” franchise since all my closest loved ones tend to die while those that I hold looser are happy and healthy at the margins. I am pro euthanasia, and as a lawyer, it is one of my dreams to write a law that would legalize euthanasia in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts though it is extremely unlikely. Most lawyers do not get an opportunity to write bills that become laws, and I already had that chance, so a second time seems like the equivalent of finding a four-leaf clover. For those fearful of euthanasia, rest assured that even in places where it is legal, only 4% of the population chooses this option, but the world is very anti-choice and deeply religious on this issue though it would be nice if they were just as deeply religious about healing people or preventing death as Jesus is. Alas it is about control and fear of death. I came to this movie with the hope that this film would depict death with the same emotional accuracy as “Pain & Glory” (2019), which reflected on pain and the power of finding passion and meaning in work.
“The Room Next Door” is a colorful fantasy so if you are looking for something that will lull you into believing fiction and reassure you about death, relationships and the appreciation of creativity, this movie is for you. The French still win at translating the real-life experience of dying to the screen. Of course, fans of Almodóvar’s latest film may use the following line to deflect such criticism, “Lots of ways to live inside a tragedy,” but it is less about flubbing the facts and more about the cinematic emotional landscape not resonating in a soul deep way.
Even though Moore and Swinton are amazing actors, and Almodóvar offers his signature sumptuous, vibrant visual feast of colors, the characters feel wooden, measured and stiff as if they did not really exist before someone yelled action. In comparison, their surroundings are more innately interesting and reflective of their inner souls than their belabored effort at conversation. Even though an American wrote the original story, it neither feels American nor transcends borders through aiming at universal concepts. At least when Almodóvar’s films are in Spanish, if the moviegoer is not a Spanish speaker, there is no subliminal comparison with personal experience, and one can suspend disbelief that his scenarios are anchored in the bedrock of an unfamiliar, distant, romantic nation. No such illusion exists when you are a native American.
Ingrid is a writer, a notoriously lucrative profession (sarcasm), who writes books for a living. She just moved to Manhattan and is living in a jewelry designer friend’s apartment. That is it. She feels like a concept, not a person, who exists for Martha to play off and perhaps in a more inventive narrative, is the embodiment of Ingrid’s doubts and fears of death. Moore plays her with a youthful emotional tone to indicate that despite Ingrid saying yes to Martha, she is uncomfortable with the situation. Without Martha’s consent, she leans on Damian to vent about the situation.
Most American women find it difficult to maintain friendships, especially white women who have the roughest battle with internalized misogyny—see “The Substance” (2024), “Nightbitch” (2024), and “Babygirl” (2024). Look at voting trends—out of survival and to maintain power, it is easier to ally with a man in the US. It is very hard for them to decenter men, so Almodóvar’s favorite theme of vibrant, deep female friendships is harder to find and depict convincingly in the US. The existence of Damian would destroy the entire plot because Ingrid and Martha’s friendship may not survive passing him around. Also Ingrid seeing Damian without telling Martha would not be perceived as innocent even though the story dictates it. It would be seen as a betrayal.
Damian is supposed to represent someone with less hope in the face of tragedy, specifically about climate change. He gives an opportunity to Almodóvar to revisit his theme of law enforcement as male, ineffective, judgmental and punitive with little curiosity about human nature. Like “Law of Desire” (1987), the crime is existing and the desire to live in the way that they see fit with secret allies who are willing to protect them from an overreaching, controlling government that leans towards authoritarianism—remember that Almodóvar started during the Franco regime. This theme resonates more in his earlier films, and here it does not feel like a subversive act of defying a regime dictating identity and basic human rights, but a loose thread tied. It could have been left on the cutting room floor, and no lawyer in the world would have considered this situation a heavy lift. Of course, then there would not be another opportunity to get an Alessandro Nivola cameo in 2024.
Martha gets more dialogue, which makes her more three-dimensional since she can lean on recalling war stories. Flashbacks depict her backstory prose dumps, which never really worked and thankfully ends after the first part of “The Room Next Door.” It starts with a few about the father of her child and his experiences surrounding fighting in the Vietnam War, and another memory involves meeting a Carmelite priest in Iraq. The battle against cancer and war seems like a natural fit, but it falls flat perhaps because Almodóvar is better at evoking the nostalgia of past lovers than convincingly depicting war and its effects on people. He is also aiming for the organic crossroads between war and sex, but there is zero physical attraction between any character within the film so bringing up sex only serves to remind a viewer how buttoned up these people are.
Once Swinton gets to sink her teeth into the fury of not having control over the timing of her death, “The Room Next Door” finds its footing. Martha declares, “Cancer can’t get me if I get me first.” It is race against the clock, one that Ingrid does not want anyone to win. Everything that Martha describes about pain and the inability to be self-possessed in the face of it, i.e. be capable of intellectual thought and holding on to her individual identity, is accurate. It is the rare film that would have been better if the narrative followed the person who wanted to die, whom most people would not relate to, instead of the more basic protagonist.
With that said, Swinton as a twenty-first century Camille is a strain on suspension of disbelief. She looks wonderful and has always been thin so while the absence of makeup makes her a plausible cancer patient, it also feels like acting, not someone being eaten from the inside out. Swinton plays two different characters by just using a different wig, and it did not work as well as it did in “Suspiria” (2018). Stop! Flashbacks of Martha’s conception of her daughter, Michelle, imbue American teenage girls with a level of maturity, selflessness and understanding in romantic relationships that most do not possess. Are you sensing a theme? Americans are not good at cultivating deep, functional relationships that are not superficial. There is a scene after Martha is released from the hospital and calls Ingrid to see if they could hang out. It would be a text, and it is extremely unlikely that Ingrid would drop everything and go on the same day even with the Sword of Damocles looming overhead. Very few American daughters are holding grudges against their mothers for fathers leaving them. If they are, there is an expiration day and time for that nonsense.
While “The Room Next Door” offers a guide on how to live well in the face of death and validates the choice of when and how to die dignity, Almodóvar pulled too many punches by making it seem beautiful. “Pain & Glory” does a better job of showing how a body imprisons a person and destroys their ability to function even intellectually at full capacity. He is probably still too scared of and removed from death to do his best work. No one is perfect.
