The Room Next Door Review

The Room Next Door from writer and director Pedro Almodóvar takes a long look at two friends as they navigate one of them facing a terminal illness. Pedro Almodóvar movies always feel a little odd to me, and this film produced the same sensation.

When The Room Next Door began it felt off – the dialog was strange and stilted. The acting, especially from Tilda Swinton, felt like someone reading from a textbook. I almost stopped watching, but I wondered why two actors like Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore would want to be involved in this story. There had to be something more there. And I’m glad I stuck with them, because it grew on me.

Martha (Tilda Swinton) had terminal cancer. She was getting treatments, but if they didn’t work she wanted to be able to choose her own time and way of death.

When old friend Ingrid (Julianne Moore) heard Martha was ill, she went to visit. Martha told her about her plans for dying and ask Ingrid to be there with her. Not in the room, but in the room next door. Ingrid was an author and afraid of death. She’d just published a whole book about her fear of death. Yet she agreed to spend her time with Martha during her last moments.

Martha was prepared. She had the pills she needed to end it whenever she chose. This was illegal where she lived, so she and Ingrid made a plan that would appease the police if they asked questions about it.

Martha didn’t want to die in a familiar place. She rented a beautiful house on a forested hillside where she and Ingrid spent her last days. The days were spent not in mourning, but in celebration. A celebration of the falling snow, of the bird song, of the sun on a beautiful afternoon, and of friendship.

Their mutual friend Damian (John Turturro) helped them find a lawyer for afterwards. Ingrid knew how to contact Martha’s estranged daughter afterwards. They were ready whenever Martha decided that the day had come.

There was a lot of red in the film. Bright red lipstick, red splashes in the scenes. Most important was the red door of the bedroom in the house Martha rented. If she slept with the door open, Ingrid knew she would be alive. If the red door was closed when Ingrid awoke, it meant the time had come. There were several references to falling snow and to the short story “The Dead” from James Joyce’s “Dubliners.” Almodóvar loves his symbolism and this film had plenty of it.

I ended up being enchanted by the beautiful story, the peaceful death, the quiet love the women gave each other. This is Almodóvar’s first film in English and I thought he could have used some help with making the dialog more natural. But it worked as a whole piece. Not a happy film, but not terribly sad either.

I’ve had friends who lived in states where end of life options for physician assisted death with dignity options were legal. I lived in one such state myself and was comforted by the knowledge that it was possible. I’m in a different state now, with different laws, and really wish I still had that choice for myself.

If this film sounds like something you might like, you can see it on Netflix.