Title: The Room Next Door

Director: Pedro Almodóvar

Year: 2024

Country and language: Spain, English

Genre: Drama

Australian distributor: Sony

Based on Sigrid Nunez’s 2020 novel, What Are You Going Through, The Room Next Door is the first English-language feature film of Spanish director, Pedro Almodóvar, featuring Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore as the leads.

From Heather Taylor Johnson’s review: Unlike the earlier farcically camp films or the later intricately plotted ones, The Room Next Door is a departure for Almodóvar, as its characters are not on the fringes of any society and the narrative is very straightforward. How does one deal with death? … As a backdrop to their conversations, the musical score is … like something you’d hear in old black and white film noir, though it’s offset by vivid colours – the bright plum bathrobe against the lime green chair, the bright red Dodge against the dismal back road, the pink sunset in the city, the blue sunset in the mountains, the endless fresh flowers – and there you have it: it is an Almodóvar film.