Review by John Larkin
I tend to avoid writing oppressively negative reviews of films, with the exception being if I feel I am bringing something unique and singular to the broader consensus of the work - even if that means being critical of it. As of the publishing of this review, THE ROOM NEXT DOOR has won The Golden Lion at The Venice Film Festival (the equivalent of winning Best Picture at The Oscars) and currently sits at 94% on the rotten tomatoes critics meter. So in this case, I seem to be in the very minuscule minority of viewers who found Pedro Almodóvar's newest film to be a complete and total dud.
I've generally enjoyed Almodóvar's films over the years, particularly THE SKIN I LIVE IN, which I thought was one of the best films of 2011. Here, Almodóvar is doing his own version of, and paying homage to Ingmar Bergman's PERSONA (1966). Two female characters, one ill and one her caretaker start slowly melding into the same person. It's never been a concept that's particularly fascinated me, and I've always kind of associated it with arthouse pretentiousness. My pre-association with the concept isn't helped by the fact that the two female characters in NEXT DOOR are unabashedly elitist and exist in the 1% bubble within New York City.
Almodóvar's flair for melodrama and color don't lend themselves to this particular narrative which is disturbingly dark and simultaneously unconvincing. The script seems to have been adapted from spanish to english in the most perfunctory and literal way possible, with no accounting for, or acknowledgment of the nuances of conversational english. The result is a handful of awkwardly flat performances from some of the greatest actors alive. Ironically THE ROOM NEXT DOOR, reminded me of Tommy Wiseau's THE ROOM more than anything else! Characters battling cancer plays a trite and melodramatic role in both works and there are a series of contrived conversations on climate change Almodóvar's feeds to his actors at the most arbitrary of times that feels as misplaced as the dialogue Wiseau cooked up in his now legendary disaster.
Further dragging down the experience are a number of non-sensical plot developments and bizarre character traits - (who the hell can quotes scenes from John Huston's THE DEAD (1987) from memory, while watching it like it's an annual Christmas Eve viewing of IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE?). There's a truly laughable reveal towards the very end that I'm still not sure was supposed to be intentionally amusing or not. I simply didn't understand the meaning behind the bizarre choice.
It feels very much like Almodóvar has been grandfathered into perpetual praise from the critics community despite what his films deliver. I'm not sure what It was I was supposed to take from this film, but it seems to have been lost in translation.
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