Tilda’s Death Do Us Part — The Room Next Door
The films of Pedro Almodóvar have a few tried and true trademarks. They’re often fascinating character studies, deal with complex emotions often without overly expressing them, tend to be darkly humorous, and can have odd sexual dynamics. He’s an absolute master of Spanish cinema, and his knack for telling deeply human stories without resorting to histrionics is unrivaled.
So what happens when he goes for the exact opposite? Well, you get The Room Next Door, an intriguing film that arguably spotlights his creative habits by actively eschewing them. His first ever English-language feature, the movie is an unapologetic acting showcase that seemingly leans into the melodrama simply because he’s setting it in America with American performers. It’s intimate without being sexual (for the most part), it’s intentionally funny in over-the-top ways, and rather than being a straightforward examination of inherently interesting people, it appears to delight in the inaccessibility of its leads. Somehow, it works to pretty decent effect.
Essentially, this is a two-person show, with Tilda Swinton as the lead and Julianne Moore as the supporting player for the purposes of Awards Season consideration (the various bodies can nominate whoever they want in whatever category, but that’s pretty much the strategy). The two play writers and old friends who used to work together in different disciplines. Swinton’s Martha was a war correspondent, while Moore’s Ingrid is a biographer and novelist. The only other noteworthy cast member is John Turturro as Damian, an academic and environmental activist with whom both had an affair at one point or another in the distant past. Each leads a pretty solitary life, with Martha not seeing her daughter Michelle in years, an estrangement that came as a side effect of Martha’s work and trauma, to say nothing of the soap opera-esque story of Michelle’s late father Fred (Alex Høgh Andersen). The loneliness is part of the overarching theme of the picture, so much so that Almodóvar has to create a convoluted reason for Martha and Ingrid to reunite.
Ingrid meets a friend (Sarah Demeestere) at a signing for her latest book in New York, who mentions that Martha is in the hospital and wouldn’t mind a visit. It’s so forced as to be painful, but that’s also part of the charm, because Almodóvar films the more pedestrian interactions with a large degree of self-awareness, making it part of the larger joke. Our two leads will spend the entire movie together, but it takes an inciting event straight out of a lame sitcom to make it happen. Anyhoo, Ingrid does in fact drop in on Martha in the hospital, only to learn that her friend (who she’s not seen in over a decade) has Stage 3 cancer, and is in all likelihood terminal. Feeling compelled to make up for lost time, and to not come off as rude or dismissive, Ingrid sticks around to spend more time with Martha, rekindling their relationship purely out of a uniquely North American instinct against perceived impoliteness. If this were set in Spain (or really anywhere in Europe), Ingrid would only call on Martha if it was convenient, and Martha would understand that Ingrid has her own life to live, so she would take no offense. This is one of the myriad ways in which Almodóvar departs from his norms to make a cheeky “Hollywood” movie.
As the two renew their bond, Martha comes to the decision to end her life. The latest round of treatment hasn’t worked, she’s miserable and in pain, and there’s only the faintest hope of extending herself for a few more years. Having been in war zones alongside soldiers who’ve fought and died for their causes, she decides that she’s going to die with her proverbial boots on, going out on her own terms rather than letting the cancer dictate when she checks out. However, she doesn’t want to be alone in her final days, so she makes a proposal to Ingrid. They’ll rent a house upstate, somewhere secluded in the woods, and at some point in the next month, Martha will simply take a pill she got off the black market and pass on. She just wants the comfort of knowing that a friend is in the titular adjoining room when it happens. She’ll write whatever notes are necessary to police and associates to absolve Ingrid of any wrongdoing, giving her plausible deniability when an investigator (Alessandro Nivola) inevitably ask about Ingrid’s involvement.
Once they get to the house, it’s basically just a waiting game, with some great cinematography and production design (the color palette is gorgeous, and there’s a lovely contrast between Martha’s cluttered apartment full of books and the relatively spartan open spaces of the country house), as well as some subversions for the sake of light comedy. For example, Martha chooses a bedroom with a bright red door, saying that if Ingrid ever wakes up and sees it closed, that means she’s done the deed. Rather than taking the adjacent room, however, Ingrid is a bit squeamish and opts for one on the floor below, just to give lie to the title. Ingrid meets with Damian, never revealing to Martha that they still see each other, and the entire conversation takes place at a fancy lakeside restaurant, even though Damian spends half the “date” railing against the place’s carbon footprint, but still enjoying his meal.
The fun here is in the presentation and the ironic laughs, both within the story and in a meta sense. There’s an obvious fake-out at the end of the second half that is still hilarious in its execution. When Ingrid needs to cool her head, she goes to a local gym where her trainer is a muscular Spanish man, because Almodóvar has a type. They go to a book store, buying thick tomes that neither will have time to read, but they still wax philosophical about them. When we finally meet Michelle, the reveal had the audience rolling on the floor (I saw this back at AFI Fest in October before it was given a wide release in late December).
But of course the biggest reversal of Almodóvar’s style is in how the two (or three) principal actors perform. If you’ve seen the likes of All About My Mother, Talk to Her, Volver, Pain and Glory, or Parallel Mothers, you know that he prefers subtlety, and has an outright disdain for overly emotive performances. Antonio Banderas has famously said in interviews that Almodóvar constantly tells him to dial his line deliveries down because he’s doing an “actual” film rather than a “Hollywood” one. You will never see or hear the bravado or theatricality of a Puss in Boots-like character in anything Almodóvar does. Except here. In what I can only assume is an intentional juxtaposition for his setting and presumed audience, he has Swinton, Moore, and Turturro go full-on mawkish in the more tender moments, elevate their voices to punctuate mundane lines, and cry at every opportunity, just to show how foolish and artificial it can be. It would almost be off-putting if it weren’t so effective in demonstrating how illogical and irrationally emotional people can be in extreme situations, a degree of humanity that Almodóvar both lampoons and concedes is genuine.
The one major drawback for me, and sadly it’s a rather big one, is that this film is basically a non-entity for the average movie-goer. In his attempt to make as much of an “American” flick as possible, Almodóvar missed one crucial element: it has to be accessible to the common man. This just isn’t. The relatability ends with Martha’s cancer diagnosis and the admission of a fractured relationship with her daughter. Everything else is too elitist and high-minded for what it appears he’s trying to do. I mean, think about it. Do you honestly care about the health or friendship of two well-off writers and a hypocritical environmental activist from New York City? I don’t, and I’m a professional fucking writer. I look at Martha’s apartment and just gnash my teeth at how I’ll never be able to afford anything like that. Yeah, it sucks that she’s dying, but she also has the luxury to plan out her own demise. If I were to go on the dark web to look up anything, there’d be swarms of cops ready to arrest me on the spot. She gets to buy suicide pills as if it’s nothing. Damian bitches about the world coming to an end, but can’t even spare eye contact for the poor waiter that has to accommodate his bullshit. Even Ingrid, who is a fine character and a good person, is again essentially goaded into caring about her dying friend out of misplaced guilt and a sense of obligation that only exists for people who have the time and disposable income to dwell on such things. Last year I went on my first vacation in a decade — one I’m now regretting because I’m out of work and money is super tight — and these people can afford to Airbnb an entire two-story house for a month just so one of them can kill herself. Sorry, but to the everyday movie fan, there’s no incentive to watch this, to say nothing of the shameless Oscar bait that just comes with having an entire film carried by two actors who’ve already won Oscars.
It does stick in my craw a bit, to the point where I do dock the final product. There are moments in The Room Next Door that are fascinating, especially if you’re a fan of Almodóvar’s work, because you get to see him engage in the very practices he despises for what feels like a grand meta gag. But beyond my basic love of cinema and my curiosity as to how he was going to pull this off, I can’t say I really gave a shit about any of the characters, because they’re so far removed from anything that matters in anyone’s day-to-day life. There’s a lot to like in this picture, from the writing to the performances to the production design, but there’s a sheen of elitist artificiality to it all that can’t be ignored. Most of the noticeable oddities are intentional, but I don’t think that last one was, and the film suffers just a bit for it.
Grade: B+
Join the conversation in the comments below! What film should I review next? Which is your favorite of Almodóvar’s films? If you could pick the exact method of your end, what would you choose? Let me know! And remember, you can follow me on Twitter (fuck “X”) as well as Bluesky, and subscribe to my YouTube channel for even more content, and check out the entire BTRP Media Network at btrpmedia.com!
Originally published at http://actuallypaid.com on January 6, 2025.