la habitación de al lado (w&d almodóvar, w. sigrid nunez)

Will Almodovar’s latest break the tradition of late twentieth century auteur cineastes going to the US and making a horlicks of it? Thinking Wong Kar Wai, Haneke, even Herzog. Well, not really. The Room Next Door, to give it its English title, is a curious construction. It sets out its stall early on that it’s about death, with some heavy handed dialogue (lost in translation?) as Tilda Swinton’s sepulchral Martha, clearly named for Martha Gellhorn, tells her long lost friend Ingrid that she has terminal cancer. Thereafter the film becomes a meditation of sorts on what makes for a good death. Martha coerces Ingrid into helping her go through this process, which is curiously bloodless. The most passion in the film comes from their shared ex-lover, played by John Turturro with a bullish charm, as he goes off on one about climate change and neo-liberalism. Worthy enough subjects, to be sure, but they feel shoe-horned into the film. And it’s a film of shoe-horns. There’s a gratuitous burning house scene, there’s a trademark flashback scene, which in another Almodóvar film might have been revelatory, but in this one just feels tacked on, because there was some spare budget?, there’s even a fleeting scene set in Iraq, where Martha the war photographer appears, learns that people like to fuck in wartime, then is banished to become sepulchral Martha once again. (The second film this year about a war photographer named after another famous war photographer.) There’s even a quickfire bowling scene, which might be another homage to Turturro’s role in Liebowski.

There’s the kernel of something intriguing about a late stage director musing on what will come his way shortly, and the homage to Joyce and Houston feels poetically on point, but at the same time the film feels uneven, unsure of itself. New York looks pretty, but the line: ‘Pink snow, at least something good has come out of climate change’, which Martha offers early on feels indicative of a film which isn’t entirely sure of its footing. Fortunately Turturro’s later monologue puts us straight, as he makes it clear that climate change is definitely not a good thing.