QUICK AND DIRTY: LIVE FROM VENICE

After two middle-of-the-road featurettes in English – first The Human Voice (2020) and then Strange Way of Life (2023) -, the 74-year-old Spanish director releases a far more accomplished drama in the language of Shakespeare. The story, which is based Sigrid Nunez’s novel What Are You Going Through, takes place in present-day New York. Novelist Ingrid (Julianne Moore) visits war correspondent Martha (Tilda Swinton) after finding out that her old friend is recovering from chemotherapy. Both are moved by the encounter, and promptly shares anecdotes and secrets of their recent life and intimacy. Martha seems quite chirpy, yet she confesses that she often oscillates between euphoria and depression.

One day, Martha urges that Ingrid visits her again. She has some devastating news. The cancer has metastasised, and she has been given months, perhaps a year, to live. She does not wish to bother neither her old friends nor her estranged daughter Michelle (who resents her mother for divorcing her father before she was born, and never introducing the two of them). She makes a very unexpected request to her old friend: that she remains in the room next door while Martha takes her own life. She plans to carry out her actions somewhere outside New York in the next month or so (before her body begins to deteriorate). A very reluctant Ingrid agrees, despite the awareness that her knowledge of Martha’s intentions could constitute assisted suicide and land her in prison.

This is a film that will get your thinking about the practical, the moral, and the ethical implications of taking your own life in the face of terminal disease. Is that a brave or a cowardly decision? Should a real friend help another one to die, or should they confront their suicidal tendencies instead? Is it selfish to refuse the knowledge of impeding death to friends and family? And should the law punish those who want “to die with dignity”, and their associates?

During their extensive conversations, Martha and Ingrid ruminate on the meaning of life, the right to die, the ethics of suicide, legality and consent. There is an unwavering sense of complicity between the two women. Ingrid empathises with Martha’s terrible suffering, while Martha recognises the enormous emotional weight that Ingrid has to carry on her shoulders. Both remain relatively calm throughout the entire ordeal, perhaps aided by the fact that death is Ingrid’s favourite writing topic. They are stoical and pragmatic. There are no knee-jerk reactions, no epic twists and no uncontrollable screaming – the Latin histrionics often associated with the films of Pedro Almodovar. The Room Next Door is not a melodrama. Martha and and Ingrid are in full control of their actions. They are not women on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

The weather too is a lot colder. A wintry New York is in stark contrast to the sultry Spanish summer of Julieta (2016) or Pain and Glory (2019). Despite the cool temperatures and Anglo-Saxon vibes, The Room Next Door has many of Almodovar’s trademarks. The attention to hot and intense colours remains the same, ranging from the plush loungers to the glitzy costumes. Literary references punctuate the story, particularly Dora Carrington, Lytton Strachey and Virginia Woolf. There is also a touch of Camp, particularly in Martha’s red hot, valedictory lipstick. And there is humour in the most unlikely of places. A personal trainer refuses to hug Ingrid because of a potential lawsuit. The casting choice for Martha’s daughter Michelle is brilliant, and absolutely hilarious (Almodovar started subverting conventions as early as in 1987, when he cast a transexual woman to play a cis character and vice-versa, in The Law of Desire).

This is not a movie without imperfections. The Michele subplot does not come full circle, and there is at least one prominently loose end: a fire that claims the life of her father. This is unusual for Almodovar, whose films tend to be notably well rounded up. And there is no grand finale. In fact, the ending feels a little cold. Perhaps that was intentional, in line with the stolid and balanced demeanour of the two adorable leads. In other words, this is not a film to die for. It will not make you cry a river. Yet it’s guaranteed to engage you, and to put a smile on your face.

The Room Next Door just premiered in the Official Competition of the 81st Venice International Film Festival. It won the much-coveted Golden Lion, the event’s top prize.