The Room Next Door

Pedro Almodovar's The Room Next Door, the director's first English language feature, is based on What Are You Going Through, the highly acclaimed novel by Sigrid Nunez. But the presentational style is so arch and self-evident, one wonders about the director's intent. Is the consequent humor inadvertent or intentional, in such a way as to make the movie a parody of itself? It's the old say it versus show it dealt with in Creative Writing 101. The invention Almodovar used in Tell It To Her (2002), about the grief for a comatose female matador, is absent.The story of a terminally ill journalist Martha Hunt, (Tilda Swinton) who appoints an old friend Ingrid Parker (Julianne Moore) to be the witness to her suicide is hardly the stuff of comedy. In this case it's the occasion for a series of flat linear stories that one may initially try to excuse. At one point Damian (John Turturro) a former lover of Ingrid's states that she has the unique ability to suffer while not making those around her feel guilty. It's an odd locution. Just as you're about to discountenance the obvious deadpan plot, doors open up just like the red one which Martha will eventually use as a signal. One wants to give Almodovar credit, not of the directorial kind, but in terms of the benefit of the doubt. It's not really clear what he's up to, but that may be part of the effect. Verisimilitude is not the aim and the final ending, which bears some comparison to Bergman's Persona, undoubtedly casts an unexpected shadow of clarification on what has come before.

read Francis Levy's review of "Broken Embraces," TheScreamingPope

and read Francis Levy's review of "The Skin I Live In," TheScreamingPope