After debuting his first English-language short, The Human Voice, here at the Venice Film Festival in 2020, Spanish master Pedro Almodóvar has returned to the Lido with his first feature in English, The Room Next Door. The movie world premieres in competition this evening.
The filmmaker, along with stars Julianne Moore and Tilda Swinton, met with reporters this afternoon following the first press screenings. The trio talked about everything from euthanasia to climate change, female friendships and their mutual admiration.
In The Room Next Door, Moore stars as Ingrid, a best-selling writer who rekindles a relationship with her friend Martha, a war journalist played by Swinton. The two women immerse themselves in their pasts, but Martha has a request that will test their newly strengthened bond. Also featuring in the cast are Alessandro Nivola, Juan Diego Botto, Raúl Arévalo, Melina Mathews and Victoria Luengo, among others.
Almodóvar wrote the script, an adaptation of Sigrid Nunez’s 2020 novel What Are You Going Through, and explained that he’d decided to make a film in English “To start a new era.” But, he “needed to have the right vehicle to do it.” He found that “in the middle of the pages of the book.” The book itself was unadaptable, Almodóvar recalled, though he was hooked on one chapter in particular, “When Julianne’s character goes to the hospital to see her friend.” And so, he set about developing Ingrid and Martha from “a generation that I love” which is the mid-1980s. “I know how to treat two ladies of that period,” he said to chuckles.
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Language ultimately was “not a problem” because both Swinton and Moore “understood exactly the tone I wanted to tell the story,” Almodovar said, calling the duo “a festival of two wonderful actresses.”
The Room Next Door, Almodóvar told the press, is about “the state of the planet and the state of people.” He also wanted the film to express “in a clear way” his feelings on euthanasia, which is what Swinton’s character intends after a terminal cancer diagnosis. Said Almodóvar, “You have to be able to be the owner of your own experience… We have a law in Spain on euthanasia, there should be the possibility to have it all over the world, it should be regulated and a doctor should be allowed to help their patient.”
Swinton added, “I am not frightened of death and have never been… The film is about someone who decides to take life and living and dying into her own hands; not that she wants to die, but it’s about a triumph.” She called it “a celebration” that is “very real and relatable — I can’t say I wouldn’t act in the same way (as Martha) if I were in her shoes.”
Separately, Swinton mused, “I think of this film as, in the first case, a love story between Ingrid and Martha — that really essential friendship that is in the heart of all love — and also about evolution whether talking about war, climate catastrophe… There is faith in the film in the necessity and inevitability of evolution wherever it takes us.”
Moore praised Almodóvar for focusing his lens on “a story about female friendship and female friends who are older… I don’t know another filmmaker in the world that would do that other than Pedro.” These types of relationships, Moore called “unsung,” adding, “their importance cannot be overvalued.”
She added, “What was so amazing for me is from all these years of watching Pedro’s movies — as an American this is going to sound embarrassing — I thought it was something innately Spanish… What I didn’t realize is it’s just Pedro, it’s all Pedro… As an actor, it’s important to surrender to the director’s vision. His movies have so vibrated with life and humanity to be a part of that… was incredibly exciting.”
Concurred Swinton who previously collaborated with the director on The Human Voice, “It never occurred to me that he would ever find space in a corner of his frame for me.”
In June, Warner Bros acquired some key international markets on The Room Next Door, including the filmmaker’s home turf of Spain as well as the UK, Germany, Italy, the Nordics, Central & Eastern Europe (excluding Poland), Latin America and some of Asia-Pacific, including Japan.
Almodóvar’s frequent collaborators at Sony Pictures Classics have rights in North America, the Middle East, India, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. A domestic release is set for December 20.
Produced by Almodóvar’s El Deseo, The Room Next Door was shot between Madrid and New York, with the support of Movistar Plus+.
This is Almodóvar’s first feature-length project since 2021’s Parallel Mothers, which debuted in Venice where Penelope Cruz won the Best Actress Volpi Cup for her role in the film.
Following its Lido bow, the drama will be the Centerpiece selection at the 62nd New York Film Festival in October.
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