Movie theater. Should you go see “The Room Next Door”, the new film by Pedro Almodovar?

The films of Pedro Almodovarby definition, must be privileged in our choices as moviegoers. Especially since the latest is certainly one of his most formally and emotionally accomplished.

Two exceptional actresses

Carried by two exceptional actresseswe will come back to it, it puts us in the presence of two old friends who, after quite a few years of involuntary separation, find themselves by chance, well established in their sixties. Ingrid became a successful novelist. Martha made a career in war reporting. Their reunion will take place under the sign of an announced end. Martha suffers from incurable cancer.

She is living her last weeks and will ask for help and assistance from her lifelong friend. Martha obtained a lethal pill on the dark web. She rents a splendid house in the heart of the forest, not far from New York and invites Ingrid to come and live her final moments with her. The code is as follows. If one morning the door to his room is closed, it will be over. This is of course the time to recount some memories, laughingly recalling a lover they had in common.

Flashbacks show us them as teenagers, then in their professional maturity. Particularly during a report by Martha in the Middle East, an interlude allowing her colleague reporter to find on site one of her former loves who had become religious, an opportunity for the director and screenwriter to slip the importance of carnal relations into the war situations.

Cinema genius

Pedro Almodovar assumes his desires, that of bright and contrasting colors, that of shots that look like they were drawn with a stylus, that of an editing whose clarity and precision contribute to the formal narration, that of the direction of his actors that we guess under the spell of this genius of cinema, that of these settings leaving the protagonists all the space for their emotions.

By bringing together two actresses that we know are outstanding, the Spaniard couldn’t have chosen better. Diaphanous in her skin as in her eyes which already contemplate another world, Tilda Swinton is this overwhelming Martha determined to take the final step according to her wishes. Unforgettable! Giving in to her in no way, but on a completely different register, Julianne Moore portrays Ingrid as a model of restrained compassion but of unfailing intensity and loyalty.

A radiant film

The end of the scenario poses the problem of the end of life planned by the patient and the multiple obstacles, here in America, that she encounters. Far from any pathos, a sublime, heartbreaking, melancholy and, ultimately, radiant film.

Robert PÉNAVAYRE

The Room Next Door, a film by Pedro Almodovar

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