Golden Lion for best film: The Room Next Door, by Pedro Almodovar

Pedro Almodóvar’s films are consistently political, and this one is no exception, as it addresses the urgent issue of euthanasia. Although the practice has been legal in Spain since 2021, it remains banned in many other liberal democracies. In the United States, for instance, assisted dying is legal in only a handful of states—including Oregon, Washington, California, and a few others—under strict regulations, and remains a contentious issue at the national level. This is why, for the first time in his career, Almodóvar ventures beyond Spain to America, directing a film in English. This choice also fulfills the film’s secondary aim: to pay tribute to America and the English language, akin to a visitor leaving home for the first time. The move is both symbolic and narrative, as it displaces Almodóvar’s usual cultural references and repositions his themes within a foreign but deeply influential cinematic and literary tradition.

The plot unfolds simply: Ingrid (Julianne Moore), a successful writer who has just released a book about her fear of death, visits her old friend Martha (Tilda Swinton), a war correspondent battling cancer. Martha asks Ingrid to stay with her at a house she has rented for her final days, requesting that Ingrid remain in the “room next door” while she takes an euthanasia pill acquired from the dark web. Ingrid eventually agrees. Their interaction forms the backbone of the film’s emotional and intellectual inquiry, with the physical space between their rooms echoing the emotional distance they work to overcome.

The theme of the contrast and intersection of life and death permeates the film, which is structured around long, brilliant dialogues between the two protagonists, resembling a theatrical play. The script weaves stories, flashbacks, and literary references into a plot devoid of substantial events, but that builds towards Martha’s final choice. Their conversations blend the philosophical and the personal, with Almodóvar’s writing navigating grief, memory, friendship, and mortality with deliberate pacing. The result is a kind of intimate chamber drama, where gesture and silence often carry as much meaning as dialogue.

Almodóvar’s signature aesthetic is evident throughout, with saturated colours—green, red, and blue—pervading every frame, alongside his distinctive set design, photography, and editing. Interiors are meticulously curated, and lighting often signals shifts in mood or time. However, the most problematic aspect is the film’s reliance on intertextual and cultural references drawn from American and Anglophone culture. These tributes include Hopper’s paintings, Faulkner, Hemingway, Hitchcock, Buster Keaton, and a reimagining of Andrew Wyeth’s Christina’s World in one of the many flashbacks. These references are presented without much re-interpretation, functioning more as direct homages than as integrated narrative elements. American culture also influences the story through themes like Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), the Vietnam and Iraq wars, and the character of a personal trainer—one of the film’s more successful sketches—amongst other elements included only to emphasise the director’s Anglophone debut. These inclusions often feel ornamental rather than essential to the core of the film.

To honour the English language, the movie references Joyce’s Dubliners—its final line repeated three times—Virginia Woolf, her friend, the painter Dora Carrington, and writer Lytton Strachey. However, where previous references in Almodóvar’s films felt organic, here they come across as a patchwork of banal citations as if he felt obliged to pass a test. This extends to the script’s engagement with contemporary discourse. Some dialogues, especially those delivered by John Turturro on contemporary issues like climate change, the pandemic, and cancel culture, come across as rather bland. These moments lack the irony, tension, or narrative necessity that might justify their inclusion. Overall, the movie fails to provide a compelling commentary on current topics or offer an interesting take on American culture. These thematic inclusions feel more like obligatory gestures than urgent concerns.

The film features some exceptional elements, including Julianne Moore’s performance and, especially, Tilda Swinton’s, who delivers one of her finest roles. Their physical presence, tonal control, and subtle variations in delivery anchor the film’s more abstract moments. The tension between their characters—one a novelist who creates literary worlds, the other a war correspondent who reports on real tragedies—their complicity and understanding is remarkable. The cinematography and visual construction are exceptional, as expected. Cinematographer José Luis Alcaine crafts spaces that are both intimate and charged, with lighting and framing that enhance the emotional stakes of each scene. However, despite these strengths and its important message, the film ultimately falls short in certain aspects, weighing down an experience that could have otherwise been flawless. What remains is a formally polished, carefully articulated work whose emotional and intellectual reach never fully matches the scale of its intentions.