Three years after the very beautiful Parallel mothers (with his faithful actress Penélope Cruz), Almodóvar adapts the novel What Are You Going Throughpublished by the American Sigrid Nunez in 2020 (translated by Stock in 2023 under the title So what is your torment?) and takes us to the East Coast of the United States.
A restrained thriller
Best-selling author, Ingrid (Julianne Moore) returns to New York after many years spent in Europe. There, she learns that her old friend Martha (Tilda Swinton) has serious brain cancer. She immediately goes to see her in the hospital, where Martha confides in her past, on her difficult relationship with her daughter… While at the time of the diagnosis, Martha had come to terms with the idea of her imminent death, she follows an experimental treatment that appears to work. Martha, however, asks Ingrid for a painful service, which the latter ends up accepting…
Tilda Swinton, masterful in “The Human Voice” by Pedro Almodóvar
In 2020, Almodóvar unveiled his first English-language film in Venice, the magnificent medium-length film The human voiceaccording to Jean Cocteau, with, already, an immense Tilda Swinton. Follow-up, last year of the medium film Strange Way of Life with Ethan Hawke and Pedro Pascal. The transition to a feature film took place naturally and the Spaniard can count on the mastery of his two exceptional actresses to immerse us in the heart of a plot which addresses, in a rather disconcerting way, the theme of the end of life .
The relationship with death
With The Room Next Doorwe are far from the melodramatic flights which have long characterized Almodovar’s cinema. What is striking here is the restraint, the almost clinical staging, returning somewhat to the mechanical tone of The skin I live in in 2011. Despite the painful subject, that of the end of life, we are indeed far here from the melodramatic outpourings of All about my mother (1999), Talk to her (2002) or Return (2006).
With “Strange Way of Life”, Pedro Almodóvar explores the remains of “Brokeback Mountain”
-Carried by the disturbing strings of the director’s faithful composer, Alberto Iglesias, The Room Next Door takes on the air of a thriller to tell the story of the relationship that is renewed between these two friends who meet again after many years and who will share a unique experience in a sublime villa in the woods, north of New York…
“Pain and Glory”, a fictional self-portrait by Pedro Almodovar, with Antonio Banderas playing the role of his life
But this is just a false lead for Almodóvar. Or, if there is a thriller, it is the one that will lead to the inevitable end. After taking stock of his life and career in the splendid Pain and glory in 2022, the 75-year-old filmmaker this time explores the right to die with dignity. And this, in an American context where assisted suicide is only legalized in five American states…
The Room Next Door Drama Screenplay and direction Pedro Almodóvar (according to What Are You Going Through by Sigrid Nunez) Photography Edu Grau Musique Alberto Iglesias Montage Teresa Font With Tilda Swinton, Julianne Moore, John Turturro, Alessandro Nivola, Juan Diego Botto, Raúl Arévalo… Duration 1h50
