JULIANNE MOORE, TILDA SWINTON IN THE ROOM NEXT DOOR

PEDRO ALMODÓVAR: THE ROOM NEXT DOOR (2024) NYFF Centerpiece Fiim

Almodovar turns to end of life for a first feature in English drawn from Sigrid Nunez

The Room Next Door is Pedro Almodóvar's first English-language feature film. Last year he showed at the NYFF a thirty-minute film in English, Strange Way of LIfe/Extraña forma de vida,. This is the second of two Sigrid Nunez novel adaptations in this year's NYFF. The other is Scott McGehee and David Siegel's low-keyed, engagingThe Friend, with Naomi Watts and Bill Murray. A Time Magazine article talks about the author in relation to the two films, which debuted at Venice and also showed at Telluride and Toronto. (The subjects relate; she is pleased with how they turned out.)

The Friend has a light touch. It approaches death and grieving, you might say, by indirection. Almodóvar, and Nunez, on the other hand, are approaching death more directly. The trouble in this case is the Spanish filmmaker's glossy, beautiful, artificial approach, arguably heightened by his working in a second language. There is no question about the beauty and elegance of The Room Next Door, or the delicacy of the performance by longtime Almodóvar friend John Turturro as Damian Cunningham, a man who at separate times has been the lover of both women.

But despite the glamorous actresses and the beautiful settings and cinematography, including a showcase rented modernistic house in the country where Martha (Tilda Swinton) goes to end her life accompanied by Ingrid (Julianne Moore), and an initial meeting at Lincoln Center, a place dear to the director for many years of recognition, The Room Next Door falls short of the kind of depth and conviction the Spaniard achieved in his searching 2019 life summary Pain and Glory, or masterful earlier films he made during the Movida Madrileña period like Law of Desire (1987), Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988), or things of beauty like All About My Mother (1999) and Talk to Her (2002) - one could go on and on.

The Room Next Door is based on What Are You Going Through, Nunez's novel about euthanasia, where (spoiler alert) Ingrid, a good friend (Moore) is prevailed upon to help Martha (Swinton), an older woman and former American international war correspondent with terminal cancer. Ingrid is to do this simply by being present, as Martha ends her life using an illegal pill she has acquired via the Dark Web. In the book Nunez references Chantal Ackerman's No Home Movie, which approaches a similar subject, in documentary form, and so you could say Nunez was thinking of, even inspired by, a film when she began her book.

Almodovar explains his movie also focuses (more indirectly) on a "very imperfect mother" (Martha) and "her resentful daughter" who are tentatively rekindling a relationship that has been suspended for some years. In the background there is this unseen daughter, who appears only toward the end (surprise novelty casting).

Almodóvar this time translates his lifelong fascination with mothers (one of his best films was "all about" his) and with women (another depicted them "on the edge of a nervous breakdown," or "al borde de un wataque de nervios") to English, and the American idiom - except that Tilda Swinton isn't American. But she has played a mother twice for Joanna Hogg, incliuding, in The Souvenir: Part II, with her own daughter, Honor Swinton Byrne, as her daughter. And there isn't much the versatile Tilda hasn't played or can't play. However, as this brash American, she is less at lease than with Joanna Hogg, and her Martha performance with its brash American accent at times seems pushed.

The biggest flaw with The Room Next Door is euthanasia, which leads Ingrid into a relationship with Martha that is not only uncomfortable (closer friends have already refused) but illegal. It seems slightly implausible that a sometimes estranged friend could ber lured into something not only unpleasant but risky, and the glossy, pretty affair Almodóvar makes of it at the handsome country retreat. All this has been initiated when Martha has learned that the experimental treatment she had agreed to turns out not to be working, and her cancer is spreading to her other organs. The film seems to forget this as Martha and Ingrid, out in the country, go on enjoyable outings and revel in the beautiful setting and nice weather.

After the death there is a hassle with the local police. Suddenly this seems perhaps the most important part of the film, but it is rushed through. This invites comparison with François Ozon's witty, slightly oddball, but also very practical 2019 film about this same subject Everything Went Fine (Tout s'est bien passé), which approaches euthanasia in France. There, a practical, legal solution is found, by going to Switzerland, where it is legal. In The Room Next Door no legal solution is found, and the fact that it is not isn't dealt with satisfactorily. Morally and legally the film leaves things up in the air.

This is not to say that Almodóvar doesn't ponder interestingly on end of life issues and that this film isn't beautiful and sometimes well acted; it does and it is. But the foray into another language (at age 75) is, as often happens, a dilution and a distraction as well.

With this Centerpiece Film at New York, Almodóvar nonetheless sets a record here with his fifteenth NYFF selection, nine of which have been featured "gala" presentations. The Spaniard has had a glorious and friendly history at Lincoln Center which is being celebrated this season with his reception of the Chaplin Award. Almodóvar's New York debut was in 1988 with Los mujeres al bordo...etc.(NYFF26) as the Opening Night selection.

The relationship flowered after Richard Peña's debut as director of programming, and this was a felicitous marriage , and there was a special fluency of Peña and Almodóvar together on stage, since the former was a fluent Spanish speaker as well as a fluent host and interviewer. The next opener was 1999's All About My Mother , on to Bad Education (NYFF42) and Volver (NYFF44) were selected as Centerpieces, and Live Flesh (NYFF35), Talk to Her (NYFF40), Broken Embraces (NYFF47), and Parallel Mothers (NYFF59) were Closing Night selections. Additional NYFF selections include The Flower of My Secret (NYFF33), The Skin I Live In (NYFF49), Julieta (NYFF54), Pain and Glory (NYFF57), The Human Voice (NYFF58), and Strange Way of Life (NYFF61).

The Room Next Door, 110 mins., debuted at Venice Sept. 2, 2024, showing also at many international festivals including the NYFF, where it was screened for this review. Metacritic rating: 70%.

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©Chris Knipp. Blog: http://chrisknipp.blogspot.com/.