The critic's screen: the connection of friendship and kinship

Next room ★★★

“The Next Room”… the Spanish film by Pedro Almadóvar, the first feature-length novel in the English language.

He previously directed two compact films in English: “Strange Way of Life,” with Ethan Hawke and Pedro Pascal, and “The Human Voice,” with Tilda Swinton. But this time he saw a kind of difference from his previous works, especially since the subject of his film talks about two non-Spanish women played by Julianne Moore and Tilde Swinton. Not that the story itself could have been included in his Spanish films, but, most likely, he wanted to work with two distinguished actresses, and it would not have been natural to dub their dialogue into Spanish or any other language. This is in addition to the fact that the English-speaking film, by any European director, has a larger screening space, and if the director is as famed as Almadóvar, then the rush towards the awards season after he snatched the Best Film award at the Venice Film Festival is inevitable.

Swinton in “The Next Room” is Marta, who has cancer and does not have many days before she says goodbye to the world. She chooses the novelist Ingrid (Julianne Moore) to accompany her for the rest of her life. Their aged friendship prompts Ingrid to agree. Marta rents a house in the countryside for the two of them, with Ingrid living in a nearby room (not next door as the title suggests).

A lot of monologues and the usual Madovar playing on his female characters. He treats them with tenderness and affection and makes the dialogue between them reveal opinions and viewpoints in life, friendship, and work. But the film's primary concern, as dramatic writing, is the position of death in relation to life. How it is the greatest human trauma. A challenge that no one can win.

The film suffers a major setback when it enters, if only for a moment, into the chapter of the police investigating Ingrid after the death of her friend, as if she were responsible for her death. Then the film leaves this extraneous matter and turns around to present Ingrid’s daughter, who was not on affable terms with her mother. The film ends with a recent friendship developing between Ingrid and that daughter who unknowingly appears to be acting like her mother.

Despite the details of the décor, the provision of primary colors (red, yellow, green, etc.), and the presentation of the story in a good visual manner, the film does not rise much above the level of other works by Almadóvar. It is better than his previous film, “Parallel Mothers” (“Parallel Mothers”, 2011), but its inert tone, and the weakness of its justification for what happens (it does not go beyond a narration of what was written, but rather continues with it with some diversity), leave the film in an uncomfortable position.

* Shows: Venice Film Festival (2024).

Never leave it ★★

The mother (Haley Berry) and her twin sons Nolan (Percy Daggs) and Samuel (Anthony B. Jenkins) live in an aged house in the woods, isolated from the world in a post-apocalyptic time. There are demons, zombies, and snakes in the forest that surrounds them. When they go out looking for something to eat, the brothers have to exploit a rope because the rope (which is part of what is intended in the title) is their way of avoiding danger. If they abandon it and do not preserve it, those demons and evil symbols will come out to harm them. In the first third of the hour we get an example. One of the two brothers unties his rope and becomes jealous of his brother, so he steps on his rope, causing him to fall into an inhabited part of the forest. Even if the rope is a metaphor for what can be interpreted as family ties in times of danger, the exploit of the rope remains a delicate function.

Never Let Go (Twenty One Labs).

This weakness coincides with several loopholes that make the film too delicate to stand on firm feet. Aja (a French director who has been making films in the United States for several years) lacks the ability to capture his subject and develop it well, and his implication that the evil lurking around this family wants to spoil the relationship between the two brothers plays an vital, if circumscribed, role. It is the religious aspect that we usually see in American horror films, where the conflict between faith and evil moves from one film to another in multiple faces.

The twin brothers do not look like each other. It is something that many people may not think about, but it is too vital not to mention. As for Halle Berry, she is an example of an actress who no longer finds good work and falls into such a film. Better than it was “Quiet Place” by John Krasinski (2018), which talked about a family in a similar world and danger, but crafted a tightly executed suspenseful work from beginning to end.

• Offers: commercial.

★ delicate | ★★: middle| ★★★: Good | ★★★★ Very good | ★★★★★: Excellent