The Room Next Door review: "Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore excel in this haunting drama"

Pedro Almodóvar fans may be wrongfooted by the writer/director’s first full-length English-language feature, an atypically austere entry in his canon that’s nevertheless as vivid and haunting as much of his other work.

Adapting Sigrid Nunez’s novel What Are You Going Through, Almodóvar examines friendship and death via two reconnected ex-colleagues: successful author Ingrid (Julianne Moore) and war correspondent Martha (Tilda Swinton). Martha is battling stage-three cervical cancer and wants a 'good death', so asks her friend to accompany her to an upstate New York rental for reading, relaxing and, ultimately, euthanasia, using a pill sourced on the dark web. 

The women recall their past (including their romantic dalliances with John Tuturro’s eco-warrior), explore their relationship to mortality, and cherish the wonder of life. Watching these interactions, viewers will doubtless feel compelled to engage in their own bouts of self-reflection. 

Although restrained for an Almodóvar movie, The Room Next Door is filled with color (pistachio sun loungers, pink snowflakes, rust-coloured leaves and, of course, pops of signature red), not to mention jolts of passion, rage, ambition, lust, hurt, and intrigue. Deftly navigating a script that takes in poetry, John Huston films, and environmental concerns, Moore and Swinton excel as accomplished women who worry about their failings. 

The only real misstep is in Swinton playing her character’s lookalike daughter, which feels odd when her younger self is embodied by a luminous Esther McGregor. But in a film exploring the concept of legacy, it’s a conceit that doesn’t overly impact on the overall richness of the material. 

The Room Next Door is released in UK cinemas on October 25. 

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