with The Room Next Door, Almodóvar addresses the question of the right to die

The best-known Spanish director is back for an… American film. Pedro Almodóvar adapts the novel by Sigrid Nunez, So what is your torment?to deliver an introspective film on the question of the right to die.

The room next door necessarily questions its viewer about this choice but leaves no room for doubts. In his case, Martha, a former war journalist, made the choice not to be cut down by cancer by deciding to leave before it decides. To soften her last days, she offers to Ingrid, an old friend with whom she has just reconnected, to accompany her to a country house, where her life will end.

The score is written on the level of emotions

Golden Lion at the last Venice Film Festival, Almodovar’s work is not invaded by ethics or morality. While death invites itself and remains factual, it is on the level of emotions that the score is written. The Tilda Swinton/Julianne Moore duo is incredibly luminous, the lines, perspectives and colors of the images are sublime: all elements which warm up the notion of cold and end.

A social subject already covered in cinema, notably in Blackbird with Susan Sarendon in 2020 where, again, it was a question of withdrawing, being surrounded and ending one’s life. A passage to the other side which divides as much as it unites, and which Almodovar decides to make shine.

Anaïs Briec

Seen for you at the Les Studios cinema, 136 rue Jean-Jaurès in Brest.

Follow all the news from your favorite cities and media by subscribing to Mon Actu.