Almodóvar impresses at the Venice Film Festival with his first English-language film, ‘The Room Next Door’

Life is full of wars. The deadliest ones are fought in Ukraine or Gaza. Just like in Bosnia in the past. But there are also conflicts around every corner. Even in the living rooms of the best homes, bullets sometimes whistle. The struggle to get through each day and not get hurt too much in the attempt. Pedro Almodóvar, for years, fought with his desire to film a movie in English. He came close, he moved away, he gave up, he tried again. It’s everyone’s battle. He dared to take two small steps, in the format of a medium-length film. And finally, today, Monday, his dream has come true at the Venice festival. With two such outstanding protagonists as Julianne Moore and Tilda Swinton. With the intention of talking about the multiple struggles of life. Including the one that should never be called a “struggle”: the one that confronts patients with illness and death. And the importance, in the worst of times, of having someone who supports you, comforts you or just listens quietly. Someone, in short, The room next door.

A strange feeling surrounds the beginning of the film. Alberto Iglesias’ music. The credits. The opening shot. Clearly, Almodóvar is back. The change of language has not affected the filmmaker’s touch. Simply, what you see now is not “directed and written by” but “filmed and written by”. But somehow the strangeness spreads to the first sequences. Just as it did in Parallel mothershis previous premiere at the Mostra, the pieces do not fit, situations and dialogues are forced. A small flashback The film dedicated to a soldier is probably the film’s lowest point. It is then, however, that the film begins to pick up again. The performances, the restraint, the sensitivity, the always impeccable staging and chromatic vision. The room next door asks for time to take off. But ends up flying too high.

The film tells of the reunion of two friends. Ingrid (Moore) has become a successful non-fiction author and has just released her latest book, Of sudden deaths. As he introduces her, he hears from Martha (Swinton) for the first time in a long time. They had lost sight of each other so much that she doesn’t even know he’s in the hospital. And the prognosis, as she tells him when he comes to visit her, leaves no room for hope: the former war correspondent for The New York Times faces the epilogue of her existence. She knows she must leave. She says she is ready. Ingrid is much less prepared, but she stays with her. At least they have each other. And the audience is treated to a master class in acting, scriptwriting and directing.

The language changes, but the essence of Almodóvar’s recent work remains. Nothing tearful, no over-emphasized emotion. At the heart of the film beats humanity and dignity. The last days must also be lived. They have, of course, tears and despair. But also everyday moments. Eating, washing dishes, reading, watching a film. And talking, a lot. As in other moments, however, it is best not to say anything. Based on the book What is your torment, From Sigrid Nunez, the Spanish director is able to film a story that is as beautiful as it is profound, all the more moving precisely because of its restraint. Death is terrifying. But that does not prevent him from showing it in a simple, delicate, even blushing way. The director himself has confessed that he thinks about it “every day.” He said that the film was “soothing” for him and helped him “understand.”

The tough competition at this 81st edition of the Mostra calls for caution when predicting the Golden Lion. The room next door seems to have been liked, but not enthusiastic either. Criticisms from some of the main international media in the sector range from coldness to Cineuropa —”it’s hard to say if it was worth the wait”—, to four stars out of five The Guardian —”when it blooms, it seems like a small miracle. Its fragility is what makes it so precious”—, passing through the approved ones, with doubts of The Hollywood Reporter, and with some conviction on the part of Variety and Deadline.

The Brutalist, Brady Corbet’s film, however, is the most striking and most widely accepted film. However, despite the parade of stars such as Angelina Jolie and Nicole Kidman, who also played complex and award-winning roles, the festival had not yet seen a female performance like Swinton’s. And even more so in a film with so many close-ups. Two years ago, she surprised the festival with two characters in the same film, The eternal daughterby Joanna Hogg. This time, she outdoes herself. Her Martha becomes a woman of flesh and blood who is heading towards the end. With all that this means, in terms of difficulty and nuances that it demands. Moore also impresses, and above all, the humility of such a star to accept that the main role of the film is the other, and to sustain it, is admirable. As her Ingrid does with Martha.

It even hurts to get away from them. Because sooner or later it will have to happen, because of the emotion they transmit. But also because the secondary elements of the film are far from such height. Every time the plot welcomes flashbacks —where the Spanish cast, with Victoria Luengo, Raúl Arévalo and Juan Diego Botto, have small roles—the feeling of disconnection and artifice returns. Although The room next door suffers from some other problems. The director’s desire to raise all the issues he considers relevant or worrying seems praiseworthy. But accumulating in less than two hours references to climate change, dark webpost-traumatic stress and mental health or religious fundamentalism —apart from euthanasia, friendship or motherhood, which are central to the work— prevents each issue from being treated as it deserves. It generates more confusion and superficiality than interest. Finally, the film allows us to point out a few literary recommendations. Although citing Faulkner, Hemingway, Marie Colvin, a biography of Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, among many others, and making a character wonder what Virginia Woolf would think of the death of a [Dora] Carrington moves between the enriching and the pretentious. The director is known to like it. Much of the audience, one might suspect, is less so.

Today, however, another firm candidate for the prize list has emerged. A surprise that did not appear on the list of the most anticipated, and perhaps for that reason even more pleasant. Vermiglioby Maura Delpero, offered another example of subtlety, intention and the ability to tell everything in the right tone and balance. Outlining, suggesting, never underlining. As The room next doorThe Italian film is also related to the war: it takes place near the eponymous village in the Dolomites in 1944, although the village lives almost with its back to the conflict. Except for the children who went to the front and for a soldier who returns and is welcomed in one of the houses. That is where, in the words of the director, “the splinters” of the conflict end.

With astonishing and measured talent, with images of great beauty, with few camera movements and an enormous sensitivity to understand and tell, without judging, all of his characters, Delpero tells the story
of a family where the father tries to control the lives, minds and destiny of his offspring, but the young people are choosing their own path. In Vermiglio, Men tend to raise children in the harsh mountains that surround the village on all sides. However, the identity and will of each daughter try to break through even through such rocky convictions. And it is the mother who actually holds all the reins at once: the home, the children, the teenagers, the husband, cows and chickens, the gossip of the village. The director said that the idea came to her after the death of her father, who also grew up in a tiny mountain village: “He appeared to me in a dream as a happy six-year-old boy, in his childhood home, as I had never known him before.”

From there, she was able to transfer so much pain along with that joy to the project. And connect it with a critical discourse on patriarchy and in defense of women’s liberation. The actors present also said they were inspired by their own grandparents. That is why the film becomes a celebration of memory. Of those who are no longer here. Of those who have just left. But also of the pleasure that good cinema offers. It is clear that no one escapes death. And life is full of wars. But, with films like this, it is easier to believe that you can win. Even if it is just for a day.