Reviews
The Room Next Door
Reviewed by Vaughan Ames
Keswick Film Club's year finished last Sunday with the latest from Pedro Almodovar. His prolific career started with making shorts in 1972 under Franco's government. His first feature came in 1980 and 'The Room Next Door' is his 42nd film, all of which he has written, produced and directed himself; the 43rd is in production already.
The bold, vivid colours he uses, and the strange characters linked by his amazing way of telling a story have usually left me thinking about the film long after it finishes. He loves to put women in the central roles, usually overcoming some problem or tragedy, and often showcasing their close relationships; this film is no exception.
Julianne Moore plays Ingrid, an author who we meet on a book-signing tour, where she finds out that an old friend, Ingrid (Tilda Swinton) is dying of cancer. She quickly rushes to her hospital bedside where their old friendship starts to grow again. Ingrid is a writer too, but as a war journalist she is totally focused on telling the truth as it is and does not want sympathy – she see this as just another war she has to fight, but she wants to fight it on her terms. We gradually find out that this means she wants to die her way, not in pain and agony of a cancer death: the film is about assisted dying.
Martha asks Ingrid if she will go away with her to be 'in the room next door' when she dies; death does not frighten her, dying alone does. She has fallen out with her daughter many years earlier and admits to having asked other friends before Ingrid, but they have all refused. Although Ingrid is terrified of death, she eventually agrees.
The remainder of the film follows the two friends as Martha gets closer to death – 'I cant concentrate on anything'. Almodovar takes the opportunity to introduce Damian (John Turturro), an old lover of them both, who helps Ingrid but is in the film to give a doom-laden speech about climate change.
The film is beautifully shot – full of primary colours as always in his films. It may suffer from slightly stilted dialogue (possibly because he wrote in English for the first time), and, for a few of us, the background music was not the best ever. Tilda Swinton plays the part with little or no emotion, which was also a discussion point: would a dying person be more emotional, or was this just her character? For me, she was fine. Maybe, then, not his best film, but still a cracker and well worth seeing if you get the chance.
The bold, vivid colours he uses, and the strange characters linked by his amazing way of telling a story have usually left me thinking about the film long after it finishes. He loves to put women in the central roles, usually overcoming some problem or tragedy, and often showcasing their close relationships; this film is no exception.
Julianne Moore plays Ingrid, an author who we meet on a book-signing tour, where she finds out that an old friend, Ingrid (Tilda Swinton) is dying of cancer. She quickly rushes to her hospital bedside where their old friendship starts to grow again. Ingrid is a writer too, but as a war journalist she is totally focused on telling the truth as it is and does not want sympathy – she see this as just another war she has to fight, but she wants to fight it on her terms. We gradually find out that this means she wants to die her way, not in pain and agony of a cancer death: the film is about assisted dying.
Martha asks Ingrid if she will go away with her to be 'in the room next door' when she dies; death does not frighten her, dying alone does. She has fallen out with her daughter many years earlier and admits to having asked other friends before Ingrid, but they have all refused. Although Ingrid is terrified of death, she eventually agrees.
The remainder of the film follows the two friends as Martha gets closer to death – 'I cant concentrate on anything'. Almodovar takes the opportunity to introduce Damian (John Turturro), an old lover of them both, who helps Ingrid but is in the film to give a doom-laden speech about climate change.
The film is beautifully shot – full of primary colours as always in his films. It may suffer from slightly stilted dialogue (possibly because he wrote in English for the first time), and, for a few of us, the background music was not the best ever. Tilda Swinton plays the part with little or no emotion, which was also a discussion point: would a dying person be more emotional, or was this just her character? For me, she was fine. Maybe, then, not his best film, but still a cracker and well worth seeing if you get the chance.