S Poddar
In The Room Next Door, Pedro Almodóvar assembles a haunting, almost improbably lighthearted meditation on mortality, catalyzed by two powerhouse turns from Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore. While its serious themes should put the movie firmly on a somber note, it quietly defies this expectation by dwelling on the subtleties of friendship and acceptance of life’s impermanence rather than pushing viewers towards evident misery. This first Almodóvar-made feature in the English language contemplates the raw subject matter of death with a mix of grace, humor, and trademark stylistic flourish.
The film is the reunion of two old friends, Martha and Ingrid as one is at the last stage of a terminal disease. Martha played by Swinton was a legendary war correspondent from New York. At the terminal stage of her journey battling cancer; she rekindled a relationship with Ingrid, a great writer tormented by her own terrors of mortality, portrayed by Moore. It is one of those encounters that doesn’t go over the top in indulging melodramatic climaxes but instead has a very, very restrained, truer take on how people deal with loss and the complexity of life’s eventual end.
While Almodóvar’s history as an auteur known for boundary-pushing Spanish cinema might seem to mark this film as an outlier, The Room Next Door feels inescapable from his directorial trajectory. In last year’s Parallel Mothers, he went through historical trauma; the year before in Pain and Glory, self-reflection and regret in old age; now, English-speaking cinema with minimal fanfare. He goes, quietly choosing restraint over spectacle.
It is only when Martha reaches the heart of the narrative, posing that deep question to Ingrid: Having resolved to abandon all further treatment, she wants to die as an independent person and asks Ingrid to be present in those last minutes. It is this invitation that brings these two women to a pretty deep, unguarded probing into friendship, memory, and that inevitable end each of us approaches differently. Moore’s reaction at this point-hammed into one expression-is heartbreakingly, profoundly human.
The characters have a stiff quality in many of the early scenes, as if they’re getting used to speaking of death in such direct terms. But as the film unfolds, Almodóvar wades deeper into his familiar, subtle comedy and lets the cityscape of Manhattan serve as more than just a backdrop. Manhattan is gorgeous-seen and treated as just another backdrop in Almodóvar’s fantasy, hyper-styled world, with precise references to specific locations: a reading at Rizzoli, a stop at Lincoln Center. Every decision is measured, and the city is a vibrancy of its own understated character. If Swinton’s Martha has even a veneer of vulnerability, she still exudes an unyielding dignity; her looks are poised and polished, as though arraigned against the frailty of her body with every fashion statement.
This fixation on glamour is a preoccupation with preserving the aesthetic self, even at the point of death – at which it can seem shallow, but here gleans as a sort of subtle rebellion, a dignified stand against grim reality. Almodóvar deliberately spares The Room Next Door from being that intense, tear-filled drama many directors would have made of this material. He resists bombarding the audience with images of suffering, knowing that for many, the devastating reality of terminal illness needs no embellishment. Instead, the film asks us to connect the dots without being indulgent about displays of pain or sentimentality. It does so in the sense that The Room Next Door ultimately reveals a much more complicated truth, far from the bleak despair and total loss that seem to surround it.
Whatever suffering life may bring as well as whatever finality to life may create at the end is not important; what counts is what we do with what time is left. It is a message that comes attached to Almodóvar’s usual levity, it is, in turn, more of an antidote to the conventional and solemn overdose of death’s story here. Almodóvar’s irreverent style peeks through in such unexpected ways as red vintage cars and milkshake-filled diners, paying homage to the traditions of classic American cinema—the melodramas of the 1950s by Douglas Sirk, for example, who influences his earlier work. Beyond the emotional storyline, the movie touches on a more important ethical dilemma, that of assisted dying.
Almodóvar, however doesn’t take himself too seriously and deals with this choice as a human act both complex and subtle yet empowering with unforeseen pitfalls. A poignant and cheeky scene, Martha and Ingrid watch the match at Buster Keaton’s Seven Chances, where the great comedian dodges boulders that fall from the ceiling. It is a time to reflect on life itself-in the end, everyone must confront the inescapable, but there is still a place for humor and connection along the way. In The Room Next Door, Almodóvar has made a thoughtful, unexpectedly hopeful film that respects the intelligence of its audience.
Rather than taking the freedom to tell its audience what they should be feeling, it offers a brief pause to reflect and tells viewers that laughter and good company are not only relevant when night falls but make the journey worthwhile. With this movie, Almodóvar does much better than presenting the idea of accepting life’s end without succumbing to despair but finding small moments of beauty and laughter amongst the sadness if there are friends who can be shared with.
