The Room Next Door

Should have been filmed in Spanish. In English it comes off stiff and dull. Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore are outstanding though.

As a middle aged woman who has had reason to contemplate what the end of my life might look like, I found this movie to be one of the most profound and important films of our time.

I hear that Tilda Swinton is going to take a break from filming. This is welcome news to me, as it will be to others who hope that she will finally have a chance to get over herself, and, more importantly, to cease and desist her entrapment of male film directors whose knees and minds go to mush when she agrees to their casting. Pedro Almodóvar is the latest victim of Swinton derangement syndrome. Here we have three subjects of profound importance to humanity: cancer, euthanasia, and friendship. One might have expected one of these topics to be treated with the subtlety it deserves. But, no. Instead we have 1 hour 50 minutes of mooning over Swinton's elegant skeleton, clad in the raiment of cancer porn. The odd sticking plaster or chemo tube adorns her delicate frame. She doesn't eat or drink of course (I'm sure the real Tilda Swinton never does). But as someone who is meant to be at the end of her tether with disease and savage medication, it's odd that she seems to be well enough to take an elegant nap on the damp floor of a forest, a very long way away from the bathroom. I'm not asking for realism. All I want is something else to go on in this drama other than Swinton's make up and wardrobe. The film insults both cancer patients and their friends and family. The Swinton character mentions that her ovarian cancer has metastasised to various organs, including her liver. If you're starving to death because cancer has attacked the organs responsible for metabolism, you don't look like a chic Hollywood wraith. Instead, your limbs will be wasted but your belly will be distended, joints swollen and eyeballs yellowed with jaundice. Julianne Moore and the other actor - I forget his name - are puddings in comparison to the glamorously fading Swinton. When the lumpen script finally FINALLY gets that bloody pill down her throat what happens? She comes back as her own daughter!! I left the cinema swearing never, ever to go to a film that has Tilda Swinton in it, ever again.

Music too loud and drowns out audio.

I'm not sure what I'm missing. Both me and my wife walked out of the movie just before the first half. This happens to us, every ten or twenty years a movie is so bad that we can't finish it. (And we see a lot of movies - three in the theater in the last week alone.) The specific problem we had with The Room Next Door was the dialog. Most of it was long and meandering. Very nearly all of it was entirely, brutally, on the nose. There was no conflict. There was no subtlety. The characters said what they thought, and what they thought was without nuance or depth. The actresses, both phenomenally talented, had nothing to work with. Their performances were rendered one dimensional. I'm sorry, but this is a movie to avoid.

It was so surprising to see these two excellent actresses do such an awful job. Wooden performances with no chemistry. The dialogue and directing are partly to blame. But jeez, are there any good films anymore?

The Room Next Door is a 2024 Spanish drama film written and directed by Pedro Almodóvar in his English-language full-length debut ❄️ Not bad, but not my favourite either 😉 It’s ok, but I feel mixed about this one 😉 I’d recommend it if you like this genre, but if not then probably give it a miss 👍🏼👎🏼 Ingrid and Martha were close friends in their youth, when they worked together at the same magazine. Ingrid went on to become an autofiction novelist while Martha became a war reporter, and they were separated by the circumstances of life. After years of being out of touch, they meet again in an extreme but strangely sweet situation.

An important look at death with dignity..

🇪🇸 Este drama escrito y dirigido por Pedro Almodóvar explora la profunda relación entre dos amigas íntimas cuando una de ellas enfrenta la dura realidad de una enfermedad terminal y la decisión de poner fin a su vida. Aunque la historia parte de una premisa desgarradora, Almodóvar la aborda con una sensibilidad cálida, cariñosa y conmovedora, evitando caer en el dramatismo excesivo. Tilda Swinton y Julianne Moore entregan interpretaciones excepcionales, dotando a sus personajes de una química sincera y emotiva. La cinematografía es hermosa y deslumbrante, y la banda sonora de Alberto Iglesias añade una capa de melancolía y belleza. Si bien algunas escenas del final fueron innecesarias y hasta distractoras, la película logra ser una reflexión memorable sobre la muerte, la dignidad y el amor incondicional.

Enjoyed the plot and direction. Only one slight trivial niggle, and that is Ingrid's pronunciation of "Strachey", which I would have thought she would know how to pronounce since she planned to write a book about Dora Carrington. It's pronounced STRAJEY, ie the "ch" is soft, not hard.