Written by: Pedro Almodóvar
Starring: Tilda Swinton, Julianne Moore, John Turturro, Alessandro Nivola
Rating: [3.5/5]
Unwritten rules exist in requests one should not make of their friends, such as not asking to be picked up from the airport at an unreasonable hour or provide major discounts when purchasing from their business. The Room Next Door presents perhaps one of the most disconcerting requests, where one friend asks another to share the same space in which one plans to end their life. Certainly quite the request but it sets the table for an enriching dynamic between the two characters, which we can come to expect with Pedro Almodóvar.
Having to battle a terminal cancer prognosis, Martha (Tilda Swinton) does not care much to live any longer and seeks to end her life via a euthanasia pill she bought from the dark web. However, she would not like to do this alone and asks her friend Ingrid (Julianne Moore), famously known for her fear of death, to accompany and just stay in the same house as she seeks to put an end to all the pain.
Of the many questions The Room Next Door presents, one of the major ones that crossed my mind was if there would be any circumstance, when placed in Ingrid’s situation, that I would agree to assist in such a request. Instinctively I would say no, but as you can imagine, the film presents some intriguing arguments as it wrestles with the reality of mortality and how the world around us comes crashing in one way or another. Not the most pleasant thoughts but someone on the brink of death like Martha must face it head-on and has decided she would rather just end it all.
Now, with this feature being Pedro Almodóvar’s first feature-length English-language film, it certainly intrigued me to see how his work would translate outside of Spanish. The difference was quite palpable, where for much of the runtime I kept ruminating on how the film would be slightly better and heightened if it featured lead Spanish actors in their native language. There’s something special in the way Almodóvar crafts stories with this heightened sense of passion and emotion that works incredibly well if one takes a cursory look at his filmography. While I would never dream of disparaging Swinton and Moore, who are both phenomenal actors, there was always this nagging feeling of something lacking in this story and it came from a combination of the language and the mismatch it naturally brings to the cast.
However, this definition of lacking only separates this film in the way it sits in the mid-tier of Almodóvar’s filmography as it does not reach the upper echelon but this feature still has some great elements to it. This dynamic built between Martha and Ingrid contains various layers where their friendship certainly contained various swaths of time of inactivity but the way they pick in this scenario shines a light on both of them. Life has happened to both of them since they last interacted in a meaningful manner, which allows them the opportunity to reminisce but also learn even more about each other in the closing moments of Martha’s life.
Martha’s past becomes a major factor of how this narrative progresses, given that we learn about her strained relationship with her daughter along with the romance that led to her being born. Additionally, we venture into her past as a war journalist as she brushed against death on multiple occasions, but she has finally brushed against a situation she cannot escape from with this terminal cancer. All of this leads to enriching conversations between the pair and presents exactly why Almodóvar has still not lost his fastball even in the slightest.
Plenty to enjoy and appreciate, The Room Next Door presents a strange circumstance for two friends to find themselves in and allows us to appreciate the bond they build because of it. We have two greats in Julianne Moore and Tilda Swinton doing good work in Almodóvar’s first English-language film. While it did not have the same flair and emotional vitality of his Spanish works, we get to experience something different from Almodóvar. Certainly not amongst his very best but still a more than strong and worthy addition to an already spectacular filmography for the Spanish visionary filmmaker.
Films with Josh 
