THE ROOM NEXT DOOR

Pedro Almodóvar’s first feature film in English is a stilted morality play wherein the director’s trademark colourful visual storytelling is replaced by leaden dialogue and wooden performances.

After first tipping his toe into an English language project with short western Strange Way of Life, Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar now goes full-in with The Room Next Door, a feature film that contains all his hallmarks, but quickly descends into tedium.

The narrative centres around two old friends, played by Tilda Swinton and Julienne Moore, who reconnect after one of them is hit by cancer. Once it transpires that the disease is terminal, Swinton asks Moore to assist her with her preferred way of euthanasia, even if this risks criminal prosecution.

As a premise this holds promise, but in the talk-heavy exposition of the first act The Room Next Door squanders this immediately. Here Almodóvar shows why he probably hasn’t attempted an English-language movie before because the dialogue is stilted, needlessly long and utterly unbelievable.

It doesn’t help either that Julianne Moore and Tilda Swinton don’t up their game to try and salvage something from the underdeveloped material, which is strange because Almodóvar is renowned for getting the best out of his cast. His other strength, the smart extension of themes and character evolutions to colourful, evocative visuals and production design also falls oddly flat this time.

But The Room Next Door’s most egregious flaw is that the picture is excruciatingly boring, mostly devoid of suspense, and emotionally and thematically vapid. It’s highly unlikely the picture will make anyone’s top ten list of Almodóvar films.

release: 2024

director: Pedro Almodóvar

starring: Tilda Swinton, Julianne Moore, John Turturro, Alessandro Nivola