The Room Next Door

The Room Next Door might be renowned Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar’s first English-language feature, but he has left none of his signature hallmarks behind. The complex narratives filled with heartbreaking choices, visuals saturated with colour, and the precise rendering of women’s inner lives are very much intact.

Ingrid (Oscar winner Julianne Moore) is a bestselling author so famously afraid of death she has written a book about it. When she learns that Martha (Oscar winner Tilda Swinton, also at this year’s Festival in The End) — a former war correspondent — is ill, she visits her, reigniting a friendship from years past, when both were journalists.

Martha is fighting another war now, and the rekindled closeness between the women means Ingrid is drawn into her treatments as stories are told, secrets are revealed, and regret, redemption, and mortality are discussed over tea. One day, Martha asks Ingrid for the one thing she is most hesitant to give. The way they negotiate life’s deepest choices is what makes the film so memorable.

Almodóvar’s latest is a feast for the eyes, thanks to Eduard Grau’s exquisite cinematography, but all our senses are beautifully captured. We can almost taste the crisp white wine that Ingrid sips and hear nuances in the birdsong Martha adores. Superb performances by Swinton and Moore — who inhabit these complex, flawed, and fascinating women — give the film its pounding heart, making it less about death than about the magic of life while we live it.

ANITA LEE

Content advisory: themes of suicide; mature themes, coarse language