See The Room Next Door for fine performances by Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore, with the bonus of director Pedro Alvodomar’s trademark stunning architecture and design.
This is the 75-year-old master of Spanish filmmaking’s first English language movie.
Swinton, who’s just been nominated for a Golden Globe for her role in this film, plays Martha, a former war correspondent. With terminal cancer, she is ready to die – but she does not want to die alone.
She asks her old friend Ingrid (Moore) to accompany her as she swallows the lethal pill she has somehow obtained.
All she wants is for Ingrid to be there, in the room next door, when the deed is done.
Martha lives in New York, where she has a stylish Fifth Avenue apartment with an emerald-green kitchen and dramatic artworks.
But she wants to hear birdsong in her remaining days so she rents a stunning house in upstate New York, a minimalist glass and steel structure with beautiful views of the surrounding woods.
When they arrive, Martha explains that she will sleep every night with her bedroom door open. The day Ingrid finds the door closed, she will know that her friend has gone.
The film is slow-moving, mostly taken up with long conversations between Martha and Ingrid, interspersed with the odd flashback.
The production design by Inbal Weinberg is fabulous, as are the costumes by Bina Daigeler and the cinematography by Eduard Grau.
The film won for Alvodomar a long overdue Golden Lion at Venice – possibly more of a lifetime achievement award than a judgment that this was the best of all his films.
* The Room Next Door opens on December 26 at Luna Leederville, Luna On Sx and the Windsor Cinema, with advance screenings on December 20.
Watch the trailer…
