Fabrice Andrivon’s review: “The Room Next Door” an American melodrama by… Almodovar!

“La Chambre d'à côté” avec John Turturro et Julianne Moore. – Pathé

Ce film est projeté cette semaine à Marvejols.

Almodovar goes into exile and his cinema is completely turned upside down. However, we recognize the great Spanish filmmaker in The Room Next Door, an American melodrama that deals with the delicate subject of the end of life and assisted suicide.

His spectacular staging, which makes primary colors waltz, reinvents the concept of shot-reverse shot, films sober, subtle, invested and impeccably directed actresses (the great Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore, to whom we must add an excellent John Turturro), is there: it is a wonder to see the filmmaker in full possession of his means, even in a culture that he knows less, colder, more cerebral than the Spanish one that he masters perfectly.

A Minor Almodovar Remains a Great Film

But it is rather in the writing that we perceive the most changes in his work: adapting a brilliant book by Sigrid Nunez, he sometimes seems a little embarrassed by his conception of the American spectator and perhaps overdoes it in explaining his symbols and motifs: the information is repeated and underlined to clearly point out the intentions of the film, while it would surely have deserved a little more tact.

Almodovar seems to have lost some of his subtlety in tackling this subject, more glacial, more surgical than usual with him. We watch the film with a certain distance and we are entitled to prefer his more Mediterranean melodramas to this one.

Nevertheless, we watch it quite fascinated by its mastery, impressed by its rigor that does not prevent fluidity. A minor Almodovar remains a great film.

I subscribe to read the rest