As long as we breathe, we are alive. And from this breathing, Pedro Almodóvar draws the vital momentum of an incredibly lively film. Death, this distant companion, is a line on the horizon: a slow blessing that emerges, discreet and inescapable. She waits, motionless, in “the room next door”, where a serene woman has arranged to meet her.
Portrait of women and souls
But in the meantime, everything burns with intensity in the present: a house bathed in calm, under a clear sky, resonates with the last echoes of life, full, beautiful, almost sacred. At the edge of existence, at the end of the great journey, memories fold in on themselves. What we experienced, what we missed, what we could have loved more – the joys and the regrets.
The right to die with dignity finds a powerful echo in this fragile and luminous portrait of women and souls. Tilda Swinton plays the sick woman, consumed but dignified, while Julianne Moore offers her the tender mirror of infallible friendship.
All in delicacy
There is an infinite melancholy in these moments stolen from finitude, from solitude and despair, from pain too, but it is dressed in light. Because with Almodóvar, even black is always adorned with distinct colors; the quick is there. On the horizon, the world rumbles and crumbles, the climate heats up, souls disintegrate, but the end is seen as a harmony rediscovered on the threshold of an imperfect, disordered, but strangely perfect life. Everything in this limpid film exudes delicacy: the modest staging, the masterful actresses, Tilda Swinton, frail, radiant silhouette, Julianne Moore, tender, precious friend. It’s beautiful, sublime and heartbreaking.
“The Room Next Door” by Pedro Almodóvar, in theaters from this Wednesday, January 8. Duration: 1 hour 47 minutes.
