Rent The Room Next Door (2024)
3.4 of 5 from 85 ratings
1h 46min
- General info
- Available formats
- Synopsis:
- Ingrid (Julianne Moore) and Martha (Tilda Swinton) were close friends in their youth, when they worked together at the same magazine. Ingrid went on to become an autofiction novelist while Martha became a war reporter, and they were separated by the circumstances of life. After years of being out of touch, they meet again in an extreme but strangely sweet situation.
- Actors:
- Julianne Moore, Tilda Swinton, John Turturro, Alessandro Nivola, Juan Diego Botto, Raúl Arévalo, Vicky Luengo, Alex Høgh Andersen, Esther McGregor, Alvise Rigo, Melina Matthews, Sarah Demeestere, Anh Duong, India Menuez, Annika Wahlsten, Shane Vives-Atsara Woodward, Paolo Luka Noé, Cristina Kovani, Nya Bowman, Dora Rowdon
- Directors:
- Pedro Almodóvar
- Producers:
- Agustín Almodóvar
- Voiced By:
- Francesc Tort
- Writers:
- Pedro Almodóvar, Sigrid Nunez
- Genres:
- Drama
- Collections:
- Award Winners, BAFTA Nominations Competition 2025
- BBFC:
- Release Date:
- 10/02/2025
- Run Time:
- 106 minutes
- Languages:
- Castilian Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1, English Audio Description Dolby Digital 2.0, English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
- Subtitles:
- Castillian, Chinese, Complex Mandarin, Danish, English Hard of Hearing, Finnish, Korean, Norwegian, Swedish
- Formats:
- Pal
- Aspect Ratio:
- Widescreen 2.40:1
- Colour:
- Colour
- BLU-RAY Regions:
- B
- Bonus:
- Footage from the Set
- Footage from the Scoring Stage
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Reviews (2) of The Room Next Door
Probably not what you expect it to be... - The Room Next Door review by TB
Pedro Almodóvar's first feature film in the English language (he's 75). I've only seen a couple of films - Volver and The Skin I Live In (both excellent). I'd like to see all his films.
Due to the subject matter being about assisted dying, I wasn't exactly looking forward to watching it, but actually it's not dour at all; it's essentially life-(& death)-affirming.
I've seen quite a lot of negative reviews, but I didn't find it boring at all. And I think it's deliberately not overly deep or emotional, just matter of fact, which I think is appropriate and really works.
Recommended viewing.
1 out of 1 members found this review helpful.
Tender drama of life, death and friendship - The Room Next Door review by PD
Adapting Sigrid Nunez’s 2020 novel 'What Are You Going Through', in which a terminally ill woman asks an old friend for her companionship as she prepares to end her life, Pedro Almodovar takes time to shake off a certain stilted, page-bound quality in the film's first section, but a change of scene and the luminous screen presences of Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore breathe life into a film which ultimately is a very tender drama about life, death and the responsibilities of friendship.
What does work right from the start is the director’s customary attention to visual detail, to the ways that spatial lines, symmetry and especially colour can give shape to his characters’ inner lives, but it’s when the story leaves Manhattan and heads to a modernist rental near Woodstock that it starts acquiring emotional vitality. Tucked away in a woodsy setting, the house is an architectural delight, a cluster of what look like cubic boxes in wood and glass almost inviting us to arrange and unpack them, while freeing up the film to do the same with its characters - a shot in which the two women lounge side by side on upholstered deckchairs, mirroring a copy of Edward Hopper’s 'People in the Sun' hanging inside, is especially effective.
Given Martha’s decisiveness, there’s no will-she-or-won’t-she commit suicide tension, nor is there, apart from a brief exchange with a hostile police officer, any morality debate around the right-to-die issue — although it's clear that the director is in favour of legal euthanasia access. But there’s a cumulative satisfaction in watching two infinitely compelling actresses play women negotiating questions large and small, and there’s a sad beauty in the finality of Martha’s decision. Swinton and Moore imbue the film with heart that at first seems elusive, along with the dignity, humanity and empathy that are as much Almodóvar’s subjects here as mortality. What ultimately makes the film affecting is its appreciation for the consolation of companionship during the most isolating time of life, whilst among the secondary roles John Turturro does gentle, contemplative work as a former boyfriend Ingrid inherited from Martha, who now gives talks on climate change and other global crises of a world in its death throes; his irreversible loss of hope plays as a counterpoint to Martha’s.
The film feels sometimes subdued to a fault and could have perhaps used a few more notes of gallows humour to vary the tone, and at times a distracting score doesn't help, but the camerawork has a contrasting calming effect, suggesting peace for Martha and sorrowful acceptance for Ingrid. One of the most satisfying touches, injecting resonant feeling into the final moments, is a passage lifted from James Joyce’s novel and John Huston’s film of 'The Dead', providing a poetic coda. Impressive and moving stuff.
0 out of 0 members found this review helpful.