Many famous international directors have ventured to America to shoot a movie and mislaid their magic in the process – Ken Loach’s Bread and Roses and Wong Kar Wai’s My Blueberry Nights springing to mind. Pedro Almodóvar’s first English-language film has no such problems, blending European flair with a twist of Americana, and in a surprise shift, getting political in the process. Climate change, neo-liberal and far-right thinking are used to paint a picture of a world going to hell. Bet you never expected that from the Spanish great.
Almodóvar’s movies are hallmarked by their meticulous aesthetics, compelling melodramas, and strong female characters who navigate a world complicated by the psychological frailty of men. Where better to locate such a narrative, then, than in New York, home of Sex and the City? You can almost hear Carrie Bradshaw’s voice as the action starts in sitcom style. A famous author is about to abandon a signing of her new book, a novel about the fear of dying, when a friend informs her that a former colleague, Martha, is dying of cancer.
Fitting snugly into the high heels of regular muse Penélope Cruz is Julianne Moore as that novelist, Ingrid. From her sexual mores comedy The Kids Are All Right to her work with Todd Haynes, Moore has always been the most Almodóvian of American actresses and she’s on top form here as a well-intentioned, but easily manipulated people pleaser.
This is Almodóvar’s America and it’s a delight
If that’s not enough to get you salivating then her foil as the cancer-stricken Martha is Tilda Swinton, another actress born to star in an Almodóvar escapade. Gaunt and frail, she’s a former war correspondent who coaxes Ingrid into accompanying her to Woodstock where she plans to take an illegal euthanasia pill. Every moment that they are on screen together is electrifying – and there are lots of them.
Yet the true greatness of this adaptation of Sigrid Nunez’s 2020 bestseller ‘What Are You Going Through’ is the way that Almodóvar uses melodrama to stealthily tell a story of a broken America. Across several flashbacks, Martha reveals to Ingrid how as a teenager she was impregnated by her boyfriend, who grew up all-American but was psychologically damaged by the Vietnam War. Initially hokey-feeling, that back story serves to pinpoint the moment America lost its moral compass. It also sets up an attack on neo-liberalism and – whenever Martha meets her best friend, a climate change activist played by John Turturro – a passionate plea for action against the climate crisis.
If this all sounds end-of-days-heavy, don’t fear. In the hands of Almodóvar it always has the air of a frothy comedy. There’s bursts of silliness as Ingrid and Martha grapple with mortality, make plans to avoid arrest and encounter an anti-’woke’ gym instructor. The hot Latin lovers have been replaced by pink snow, and the homoeroticism has been dialled down, but this is Almodóvar’s America and it’s a delight.
The Room Next Door premiered at the Venice Film Festival.