Pedro Almodóvar has long grappled with mortality in his films, oftentimes using it as a window into society’s views on gender, relationships, and what it means to leave one’s mark. In The Room Next Door, the Spanish auteur migrates those internal inquiries stateside, finding universal resonance in a simple story of a woman confronting the end of her own story. Based on Sigrid Nunez’s novel, the film sees Martha request Ingrid’s company as she ends her battle with cancer, hoping to regain lost connections and impart whatever wisdom remains in her waning moments.
On the surface, this premise echoes Martin Scorsese’s depictions of criminals clinging to brotherhood in the face of punishment or death. But where Goodfellas or The Departed find brotherhood through shared experiences on the fringes of society, Almodóvar locates it through intellectualism and creativity.
As Ingrid and Martha reconnect through recollections of their magazine days and divergent careers, we glimpse what inspired them and how they’ve each built meaning in disconnected lives. Their lush New York apartments, filled with books and art, become not just backdrops but representations of fully realized inner worlds.
When the story relocates upstate, Almodóvar exploits the home’s glass architecture and forest views as a comment on transparency and humanity’s small place in nature’s grand, indifferent patterns. But he balances such ruminations with sharp humor, like Ingrid’s gym session yielding a sight far more comical than motivational. As with any great auteur, Almodóvar plumbs life’s depths not despite his flamboyance but because of it.
In following Ingrid and Martha’s bond through to its inevitable ending, The Room Next Door offers no answers but resonates with the spirit of our lives’ interconnected meanings. Not bad for a guy’s first English-language feature, if you ask me. The film acts as a Rorschach test of sorts—and in that, it succeeds brilliantly.
An Aching Void: Martha and Ingrid’s Bittersweet Bond
Pedro Almodóvar’s melancholy melodramas often find tragedy residing in fractured relationships, the lingering aftermath of lost connections. In The Room Next Door, he homes in on just such an aching void between the story’s two central figures: Martha, a terminally ill war correspondent, and Ingrid, the erstwhile magazine friend reconnecting too late. Through graceful flashbacks, we glimpse the women’s roots in ’60s counterculture New York, fueled by intellect and rebellion—a time that bonded them until divergent careers drifted them apart.
Now, in failing health, Martha seeks to regain her friend’s closeness—if only to impart final lessons as death’s specter looms. A former globe-trotting newsmaker, she’s become tethered to cancer’s horrors; where she once fueled dinner discussions dissecting global conflict, she now finds writing beyond her waning focus. Ingrid, meanwhile, built renown through fiction that grapples with subjects Martha introduced her to decades prior (like the novels being adapted for film). Their histories and what went unsaid in their years of silence now define their bittersweet bond.
When Martha announces her terminal diagnosis and plea for accompaniment in suicide, Ingrid—for all her empathetic artistry—feels more remote confidante than true companion. Yet as they reminisce in a sleek rental home, their rapport rekindles in ways Martin Scorsese might liken to crime family dynamics—born of experience but forever changed by time’s passage. What remains is an affection tempered by their new realities, culminating in Martha’s final self-determined moments.
Through it all, Almodóvar wrings poignancy from the smallest observances of their rapport, lending The Room Next Door an emotional acuity that echoes my favorite works of resonant drama. Whether depicting their wistful conversations or littering frames with parallels between then and now, he ensures their story lingers as a testament to connections found and forever feel just out of reach.
A Master Artist’s Visual Poetics in a New Land
While adapting a novel poses constraints for any auteur, Pedro Almodóvar infuses The Room Next Door with his love of expressionistic costumes, production design, and cinematography. Perhaps channeling luminaries like Terrence Malick in how imagery enhances introspection, Almodóvar ensures each frame resonates with emotional subtext.
In hospitals all looking roughly the same, he imbues Martha’s with swaths of rich wallpaper and flower arrangements bursting with life—an artistic tribute to her indomitable spirit amongst sterility.
His relocation of the story to various abodes is no mere expedient but a thoughtful match to the characters’ states of being. Tight close-ups provide intimacy, while spacious long shots of the upstate rental conjure a metaphor for their wandering paths reuniting under one spacious roof.
With every production detail bursting with vibrant color even in solemn scenes, Almodóvar elevates the viewing experience to art in motion. One wonders if he’d give Scorsese’s filmic palette a “pop” with such panache behind the lens.
Cinematographer Edu Grau’s geometry-minded compositions feel ripe for pause-button academic analysis, cleverly separating subjects through strategic blocking a la Sir Alfred Hitchcock. Yet such frames never distract but immerse us in the women’s fragile bond. Perhaps Ingrid’s gym sequence is silly to some, but in its tonal departure and spliced montage, it reveals Almodóvar’s freewheeling spirit intact, however, changing the language.
Ultimately, the visuals buoy what may have flagged less skilled hands. Like Tarantino structuring sequences as emotional setpieces, Almodóvar ensures The Room Next Door’s imagery remains the last word long after closing credits, gracing the screen with his masterful poetry.
Inner Turmoil Externalized: Swinton and Moore’s Illuminating Work
Where some auteurs elicit perfunctory readings from leads, Almodóvar draws Emmy-caliber nuance that elevates his craft. In The Room Next Door, he finds masters in Swinton and Moore, who fearlessly inhabit messy emotional territory with a skill befitting their esteemed careers.
Swinton vanishes beneath sunken cheeks and hollowed eyes, rendering Martha’s deterioration viscerally haunting. Yet her steely reporter’s focus flickers with uncertainty, illuminating the disorienting nature of mortality’s encroachment.
Moore matches her compatriot stroke for subtle stroke. Ingrid cycles from empathy to panic, protective yet doubting her strength in accompanying Martha to some hazy final destination. Their rapport feels borne of lived-in history; even in fraught periods, you feel their bond’s irrevocable foundation. Marty and Jules from Pulp Fiction flashed such effortless understanding across a diner booth, authentic in their irregular naturalism.
As the climate pessimist ex-lover imparting fatalistic monologues between the women, Turturro ensures no character emerges cardboard. His worries feel honestly motivated despite narrating doom; you root for rebuttals from Ingrid’s optimistic spirit. Throughout, emotive gravitas remains the film’s north star—and thanks to these talented travelers, Almodóvar’s exploration lands with resounding empathy.
Facing Finitude with Friendship: The Bittersweet Bargain of Being
Where many shirk rumination on mortality, Almodóvar demands we gaze death squarely in the eye. In grappling with Martha’s cancer-hastened ending, The Room Next Door establishes an intimate framework for staring down life’s grimmest certainty.
And yet, for all its unflinching chronicle of demise’s dread dominance, the film locates rays of reassurance in fellowship. As Ingrid supportively accompanies her friend’s farewell, her role shifts from spectator to spiritual midwife, learning death’s lessons vicariously.
Indeed, Almodóvar sustains compassion amid carnality by playing suffering for sardonic smiles. Like Tarantino’s trafficking gallows humor, his levity reminds us hope persists even when the reaper comes knocking.
Through it all lingers friendship’s transformative alchemy; where estrangement once reigned, understanding and appreciation now flourish between the leads. Their rapport’s rekindling parallels life’s tendency to reconnect lost souls at death’s doorstep, and Ingrid gains perspective, realizing life’s fleeting moments matter most.
In framing finitude’s confrontation as an intimate two-hander, Almodóvar taps empathy’s very vein. The film stands to remind us that in life’s grimmest certainties, the love of others makes bearable what we all must face. Not bad for a guy’s first English-language feature, if you ask me.
Style and Substance Symphonized
To criticize Pedro Almodóvar for stilted dialogue or sluggish momentum seems a tad puritanical, missing the point of his mastery through imagery. The Room Next Door ebbs where words limit, yet surges when style steers its emotional bull. For all critiques of its potential lags, the film never rings hollow thanks to its sumptuous symmetry of form and feeling.
Where some find faults, this critic sees Almodóvar ensuring even potential shortcomings fail to detract from the primary joys of watching gifted actors inhabit lushly realized worlds.
His command of color, composition, and production intricacies uplifts any narrative ponderings into rapture. Like opening musical bars setting a symphony’s tone, the early scenes’ awkwardness matters little once inner lives shine through luminously blocked frames and sumptuous sets.
Ultimately, Almodóvar triumphs by ensuring style serves substance and never distracts from it. Even potential drags drift by unnoticed amid visual poetry imbuing each moment with melancholic magic. The director proves once more that, in his hands, imaginative artistry proves the ultimate storyteller—and leaves indelible impressions far outlasting any word-bound criticism.
An Auteur’s Hopeful Vision Transcends Borders
While not flawless, Pedro Almodóvar’s first English-language feature shows a master continuing to probe life’s mysteries through intimate melodrama. The Room Next Door demands we gaze unflinchingly into mortality yet finds solace in fellowship—a bittersweet salve renewing my faith in cinema’s potential to both devastate and comfort. Almodóvar ensures even potential shortcomings fail to dim his empathetic investigations into connections formed and forever felt just out of reach.
Nothing if not prolific, the director seems energized navigating new shores, trusting his visual flair to carry audiences where language falls short. The film acts as a Rorschach test of sorts, resonating differently for all engrossed in its poetic imagery.
For my money, few filmmakers past or present tap art’s healing powers like Almodóvar, whether ruminating in his native Spanish or broadening narrative horizons. His willingness to keep evolving while staying true to what matters most makes him indispensable.
With luck, this marked merely one stop in an English journey opening many minds, just as Almodóvar’s Spanish journey opened mine years ago. Fourth or fortieth time’s the charm—if anyone can seamlessly straddle continents through pure storytelling, it’s this visionary maestro. Not bad for a guy’s “first” kick at the can.
The Review
The Room Next Door
Pedro Almodóvar's The Room Next Door proves a poignant, empathetic retreat into universal questions of life, death, and the subtle sorrows of love lost and regained. Though not flawless, the film resonates through the emotional intelligence of its performances and visual poetry, finding transcendence in intimacy's simple joys. While some critiques remain valid, Almodóvar's first English-language feature deserves praise for advancing understanding between cultures with compassionate storytelling that touches hearts globally.
PROS
- Sensitive portrayal of mortality and the dining bond between Martha and Ingrid
- Powerful lead performances from Swinton and Moore
- Gorgeous cinematography and production design vividly set the scenes.
- Poignant themes of legacy, friendship, and finding purpose in life's final chapter
- Style subtly enhances exploration of complex emotional territory.
CONS
- Dialogue occasionally feels stiff in English translation.
- Narrative lacks tension and could have benefited from tighter pacing.
- Certain histories feel extraneous or overexplained.
- Tone varies inconsistently between drama and unintended laughs.
