'The Room Next Door' is not just a downer but a mediocre one
Sony Pictures Classics
Reading any of the following lines, would you assume that they came from a supposedly top-notch filmmaker or a 14-year-old writing student lunging for emotion?
"I'm just a journalist addicted to war as an adrenaline."
"I've never known anyone more alive than you."
"Cancer can't get me if I get me first."
Technically “The Room Next Door” is based on Sigrid Nunez’ novel “What Are You Going Through,” so maybe these clunky bits come from there. Still: Ugh. Dealing with death doesn’t automatically make a movie heavy or insightful or powerful, and writer-director Pedro Almodovar’s (“Talk to Her,” “The Skin I Live In”) full-length English-language debut tries to milk a rough situation for supposedly built-in impact. That’s cheating, and it fails.
The plot, if you can call it that, involves successful author Ingrid (Julianne Moore) signing copies of her book about how much she struggles to confront death and then, boom, almost immediately caring for her estranged old friend and former war correspondent Martha (Tilda Swinton) as she battles stage-3 cervical cancer. Nothing really happens, aside from Martha tabbing Ingrid to stay close while she plans to take a pill and end her life. For a while old stories are shared, and eventually Ingrid has some meals with Damian (John Turturro), who both women used to sleep with.
“Even if every poet in the world sat down and wrote a poem about the climate crisis it wouldn't save one tree,” Damian says. Almodovar attempts to identify resilience, or the struggle to find it in the face of mortality or other existential concerns. But everything is speechy, and the stiff performances are merely a product of the dialogue, feeling more like a weak play than a film with the liveliness and melodrama the filmmaker is known for.
There’s drama and sadness in the subject matter, of course, but that’s not a free pass to manipulate and bore. (Seek out “Nowhere Special” for a far better 2024 effort about confronting death.) At worst, that’s offensive; at best, it’s precious time poorly spent.
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