Pedro Almodóvar, one of cinema's great dramatists and most vibrant stylists, returns with his first English-language film, Golden Lion-winner The Room Next Door, featuring radiant performances from two beloved A-listers, Julianne Moore and Tilda Swinton. Ingrid (Moore), a famously death-obsessed best-selling writer, rekindles her relationship with her friend Martha (Swinton), a war journalist with whom she has lost touch for a number of years. The two women immerse themselves in their pasts, sharing memories, anecdotes, art, movies—yet Martha has a request that will test their newly strengthened bond. Pedro Almodóvar’s finely sculpted drama, his first English-language feature, is the unmistakable work of a master filmmaker, a hushed and humane portrayal of the beauty of life and the inevitability of death, graced with incandescent performances by Moore and Swinton that tap the very essence of being. Adapting Sigrid Nunez’s treasure of a novel, What Are You Going Through, Almodóvar has exquisitely reframed his career-long fascination with the lives of women for an American vernacular, capturing Manhattan and upstate New York with enraptured affection.
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