The legendary and ever-personal Pedro Almodóvar makes his English-language debut after 44 years of feature filmmaking with The Room Next Door, a story almost tailor-made for him. His films have a distinctive way of presenting facets of life from a different perspective, and this film has the bonus of having a two-hander cast of Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore as its anchors. These two solidly entrench us in Martha’s (Swinton) end-of-life journey, which author and longtime friend Ingrid (Moore) reluctantly aids amid personal fears and possible legal ramifications.
Suffering from inoperable cervical cancer, she asks Ingrid to join her at a rental house two hours north of New York City (where both of them call home) and just be nearby as she slips from one world to the next with a euthanasia pill. Martha’s war journalist career forced her to face death constantly, but she always had someone with her – fellow journalists, photographers, etc. – during these moments, which forms the basis for her request of Ingrid. However, Ingrid fears death like a triskaidekaphobe fears the number 13. Although having recently released a novel about death, the notion that something alive has to die mentally (and, in one scene, physically) sickens Ingrid. Yet she’s not about to let her friend self-euthanize on her own, so she agrees, with Martha stipulating that she doesn’t even have to be in the room with her; she lets Ingrid off the hook by stating she can be in the room next door.
Another promise is that the only time Martha will ever close her door is when she’s swallowed the pill, an explicit signal for Ingrid. What follows is a warm-hearted recollection, reckoning, and test of their friendship, filled with moments together that seem magical and joyous, both of them truly being present for each other. As remembrances of estranged family members, lost loves, and the lives they’ve lived come roaring back into their memories and speech, we get to see how they accept and love each other for who they are, not what they represent to each other in this situation. They’re staring right down the barrel of one of the hardest decisions anyone could make, but after the initial conversations about procedures and fears, they get on with enjoying each other’s company and the picturesque, isolated outdoors that greets them when they look out the windows of their rental house.
Almodóvar and cinematographer Edu Grau take care to highlight Martha and Ingrid’s friendship and days together with colorful, beautiful framing and depth, inviting us to look at the beauty amid Martha’s fatal prognosis. This film delights in its contrast between its dark subject matter and loving shots that elevate Martha and Ingrid’s surroundings and friendship. One gorgeous frame contains the two sitting on a park bench surrounded by plants and NYC’s stone skylines; there’s subtle humor in shots like these, found readily in Oscar-bait romances and period pieces, not films about someone planning to kill themselves. Especially not when the scripted lines spoken over this shot comically outline Martha and Ingrid’s romances with the same man, fellow writer Damian (John Turturro). But here this shot is, and it’s part of Almodóvar’s push/pull balancing act of seating Martha as being of sound mind while suffering turmoil with failed treatments and a body that’s slowly giving up on her.
An obvious contrast takes place just at the end of the first act, featuring the opening of two doors in two separate places. The first door is opened in an NYC apartment to sounds of car horns and city hubbub; the second door is opened in their mountainside rental home, whereupon sounds of birds and nature come flooding over the soundtrack. Almodóvar wants us to enjoy these differences between the subject matter and life itself, providing a sort-of gallows humor in both his script and visuals. While we know that life won’t get better for Martha, she’s chosen a good friend to come along to a place full of wonder and awe for her remaining time.
Would that we could all have these options. Granted, this is a look at two individuals who have both the time, money, and agency to do these things, also a contrast to how real life is for those less fortunate. But this is meant to be a fantasy akin to those dreams we had as children, being surrounded by loved ones and in a beautiful place when we kick loose of our mortal bodies. Grau’s lush, comforting frames and staging are evidence of how The Room Next Door is a celebration of friendship, not the loss of it.
Both Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore put forth some of their best work as easygoing friends under the suffocating weight of impending loss. Early on, Almodóvar has them almost tripping over each other’s lines as both characters state their positions, gradually transitioning to listening and learning with more open dialogue and spaces in which to dwell on each phrase. Swinton and Moore have a bright, almost sister-like chemistry that gives this movie so much love and emotion that it’s hard not to get sucked into Martha’s slow degradation (which, to be fair, isn’t so drastic as one might expect) and Ingrid’s attentive care and support. They create a wonderful, tangible air of togetherness which becomes the oxygen upon which The Room Next Door feeds and thrives, with enough oomph left over for its gorgeous final shot and all that it intimates in its perfect solitude.
