Drew Burnett Gregory is back at TIFF, reporting daily with queer movie reviews from one of the world’s most prestigious film festivals. Follow along for her coverage of the best in LGBTQ+ cinema and beyond.

Five years ago — despite his protests — many called Pain and Glory a swan song for Pedro Almodóvar. It wasn’t an unfounded conclusion. After all, it was an autobiographical work about illness starring a long time collaborator that seemed to reflect on an entire life. Even if it wasn’t his last, many wonder what Almodóvar could do next. What does an artist do after that sort of career capping masterpiece?

So far, Almodóvar’s answer has been to play and to expand. He made two English language short films — an adaptation of a play he’d long-referenced and his sensual take on a western — and he made Parallel Mothers, his most political work in years. Having dealt with his personal demons, Almodóvar seemed ready to experiment and to confront the broader demons of past, present, and future.

Those modes combine in The Room Next Door, his first full-length film in English. Julianne Moore plays Ingrid Parker, a writer whose latest book confronts her fear of death. At a signing, one young reader asks her to write the inscription to her girlfriend with the note: It won’t happen again. Ingrid obliges and says, “I hope it doesn’t,” with the melancholy tone of someone who knows it will. Death arrives again for Ingrid when an old friend at the signing tells her that their mutual friend, Martha (Tilda Swinton), is in the hospital with cancer. Ingrid visits her and the two rekindle a close friendship that culminates in Martha requesting Ingrid’s presence when she takes her own life. The title refers to this request, Ingrid wanting no witnesses but someone nearby. The title is said multiple times, each time increasing in stylized intensity.

When a celebrated filmmaker makes their first film in English, people are quick to judge whether or not their style translates. Many will observe the heavy-handed script and decide it does not. This is a mistake. Almodóvar’s dialogue has always been stylized — American audiences are just quicker to accept this when a film is foreign. In fact, Almodóvar is in total control here both in moments that are grounded and moments that exaggerate for melodrama or comedy.

He has also found two English-speaking actresses wholly equipped to embody his words. Tilda Swinton — the star of Almodóvar’s short The Human Voice — was an obvious choice. But so was Julianne Moore, an actress whose best performances were with another gay auteur with a unique style. Both actresses are exceptional, balancing the various tones and portraying a deep intimacy with ease.

The film is explicitly in support of euthanasia. It’s also explicitly anti-cop, anti-fascist, and anti-neo liberal. Ingrid and Martha’s shared ex (John Turturro, also perfectly cast) is a climate scientist and in his doomsday speeches, Almodóvar’s own anger and frustrations can be felt. This is a film about a dying woman — it’s also a film about a dying world. How should someone spend their final days? How should the human race? What does hope look like when it’s not just a tool to evade the realities of mortality?

Like the writing, the formal style is also undoubtedly Almodóvar. New York has never looked like this. His signature colors and attention to design are on full display. And yet it doesn’t feel like a pastiche of old work. He seems inspired by this new setting, managing to mix the old with the new to achieve a stunning craft that’s both personal and fresh.

Before her illness, Martha worked as a war photographer. The Vietnam War and the Bosnian Genocide are mentioned, the War in Iraq is even shown in one of the film’s brief, sporadic flashbacks. This is the most unruly aspect of the film, but the reach is appreciated. How could a film about death and the consequences of human action leave out humankind’s most destructive impulse? This is a film brimming with questions and ideas, a desperate attempt to draw connections between the personal and the global.

By leaving his home country of Spain, Almodóvar has not just made a movie with famous English-speaking actors. He’s also challenged himself to expand beyond the world he knows. If Pain and Glory was a reckoning with self and Parallel Mothers a reckoning with Spain, The Room Next Door is a reckoning with the entire world.

There is so much suffering endured and witnessed by us all. But there’s also the sound of birds singing, passages of literature that remain like memories, late night movies with friends, and, of course, fucking. Almodóvar isn’t ready to give up on the world quite yet. For a movie about death, his latest is full of life.

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