By nature, movies are expected to do more showing than telling. Yet Pedro Almodóvar’s “The Room Next Door” fails exceptionally at this task. The film is the first English-language feature film for Almodóvar, whose 2002 movie “Talk to Her” won an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. For a screenwriter with such accolades, any moviegoer would have high expectations for his latest film. But the script of “The Room Next Door” is ingenuine, riddled with unnecessary description and obvious throwaways. Though the movie has such a grave focus — death — there is no suspense, no intrigue and no forward thrust.
The movie follows Ingrid (Julianne Moore), an author who has reunited with her old friend Martha (Tilda Swinton). Although Martha has now fallen ill, the women reconnect and become as close as they were in their 20s. But when Martha’s diagnosis becomes terminal, she is determined to end her life on her own terms and enlists Ingrid to accompany her in her final days.
The women retreat to a modern house upstate, where a bright red door marks the entrance of Martha’s bedroom. As long as Martha is alive, the door stays open. But the day Ingrid wakes up to a closed door, Martha explains, will be the day Martha has taken her life with illicit euthanasia pills.
Despite accompanying these women in intimate moments, the audience does not learn anything substantive about them. Over several days, the two women interact awkwardly, over-explaining and under-delivering the drama of the situation. Even though a woman is dying, their conversations are insincere and unnatural. Everything feels relatively inconsequential.
There is a useless subplot pertaining to Ingrid’s ongoing relationship with Damian (John Turturro), Martha’s ex-boyfriend. Ingrid and Damian meet only twice in the film. Their first conversation is entirely uncompelling and their second is preachy and off-putting. Damian offers overstated sermons on climate change — an undoubtedly relevant issue in the present-day, but one that is thrust so surprisingly into the film that its potential impact does not land. He also muses on death with dignity so frequently that it is overwhelming, even in a film about death with dignity. These scenes are the perfect example of Almodóvar’s refusal to let the movie speak for itself.
Even with a subpar script, both Swinton and Moore deliver as best as they can, yet the same cannot be said of the other actors in the movie. The only exception is Esther McGregor, who shines in her few scenes as a younger Martha.
After Martha’s passing, Swinton returns as Martha’s daughter. But her appearance in a brunette wig is so hard to take seriously that even her performance cannot save the scene.
Despite its lackluster script, “The Room Next Door” is a visual triumph. With beautiful, brilliantly colored sets — especially the house where the women retreat — each scene boasts excellent cinematography and production design.
Too bad looks aren’t everything.
