02/09/2024 - VENICE 2024: Where’s that Madrid heat? Pedro Almodóvar’s first feature in English might leave you cold

Julianne Moore and Tilda Swinton in The Room Next Door

Nancy Meyers’ films used to be all about love – in theory. Usually, the romantic entanglements were much less interesting than the gorgeous homes of these bickering characters. This writer remembers an article called “Bury Me in a Nancy Meyers Kitchen”, and it really does say it all. Here, it’s the exact same problem – and another great kitchen.

In Pedro Almodóvar’s The Room Next Door [+see also:
trailer
film profile], premiering in Venice’s main competition, it’s hard to focus on the battle between life and death when you have stylish wallpapers, colourful sofas or a modern holiday house with massive windows and, who knows, maybe even a real Hopper fighting for your attention. It’s as if someone has been browsing interior-design magazines for too long, taking too many notes. Almodóvar always liked pops of colour and stylised settings, but his protagonists had the energy to match it. Now, the acting is more subdued, stiffer. It makes it harder to care.

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And you should: Ingrid, a successful writer (Julianne Moore), finds out that her old friend Martha (Tilda Swinton) is sick. Very sick. She hasn’t seen her for ages, but their bond used to be strong – at one point, they even shared an “enthusiastic” lover (John Turturro, unenthusiastically delivering a speech about climate change). They become closer again, quickly, but Martha, tired of suffering and experimental treatments that go nowhere, has a plan. She wants to die.

It's already tragic, but there was potential for this story to go darker or, well, get much more interesting – after all, what Moore’s character ultimately agrees to do isn’t exactly legal. Also, Ingrid is terrified of death: she wrote a whole book about it before, yet she agrees to help out. Why? Maybe because she knows it’ll be useful. Not just to her as a human being, but also to her as a writer. “Everything is copy,” Nora Ephron used to say. Everything’s up for grabs.

They talk about friendship here, but this last-minute relationship might be more transactional than anyone would like to admit. The film is based on the novel What Are You Going Through by Sigrid Nunez, but she also wondered about these things in the best-selling The Friend. “By writing about someone lost, or even just talking too much about them, you might be burying them for good.” Then again, if you are already a writer, it’s hard to suddenly stop looking for clues. Especially when someone pretty much gifts you their secret diary.

Suddenly, Martha starts talking about her past, a lot, about her life as a teenage mother and war reporter (clunky flashbacks ensue). Was she looking for a trusty companion, or was she more strategic with her choice, hoping to be remembered? Maybe it just feels like that because Moore and Swinton don’t always make sense together, chemistry-wise. It doesn’t help that they keep delivering odd, mannered dialogues. The Room Next Door is extremely stagey, but it smells of classic “women’s pictures” – it shares their sentimentality, too. Needless to say, the ultimate weepie Letter from an Unknown Woman also makes a cameo.

Many were waiting for Almodóvar’s first film in English, but it’s hard to say if it was worth the wait. It feels so cold (not just because people keep talking about the snow), so stilted. There was much more emotion in Pain and Glory [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Antonio Banderas
Q&A: Pedro Almodóvar
film profile], for example. This one is pretty, it’s watchable, and it will be seen all over the world just because of its stars. But it’s as empty as the spectacular home they rent out for Martha’s last trip. Actually, Meyers can keep her kitchen – bury me in an Almodóvar house.

Written by Pedro Almodóvar, The Room Next Door was produced by Spain’s El Deseo and Movistar Plus+, and Sony Pictures Classics (USA).

Photogallery 02/09/2024: Venice 2024 - The Room Next Door

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Pedro Almodóvar, Tilda Swinton, Julianne Moore
© 2024 Fabrizio de Gennaro for Cineuropa - fadege.it, @fadege.it