The Room Next Door (2024)

Plot of the Room Next Door: Ingrid is an author, who at a  book signing meets an old friend who tells her about a former colleague Martha, later a famous war reporter, who is suffering from terminal cancer.  Ingrid is motivated to go and see her, finding her hopeful due to an innovative treatment, however when the treatment fails, Martha feels that she must take drastic steps. She tells Ingrid that she has purchased a suicide pill on the dark web, and than she would like to go somewhere to live out her final days in comfort before taking her own life, and will Ingrid go with her.  Ingrid protests, suggesting closer friends, but finds they have all refused to help, so the two ladies retreat to a strange but attractive country dwelling where Martha’s final days will play out.

Content: Only implied sex and no nudity. There are flashbacks to Martha’s youth. Her boyfriend returns for Vietnam scarred and they break up, but not before she has been impregnated. Later we see the former boyfriend with his wife as they see a house burning and he dashes into it, thinking he hears screaming. He dies. Martha has a daughter, who she does not get on with. The two ladies get on well, reminiscing about old times, although Martha has to instruct Ingrid about how to deal with the police once she is gone since they will want to nail her as an accessory. Ingrid has a friend, Damian, to whom she confides, and who helps her out with the difficult stuff.

A View: These people are movie royalty, so predictably the film was well liked by the large number of critics who saw it. It probably did not cost a lot, which might be just as well since it has not made much money. Regardless how it is played you can’t get away from the fact that it is a film about terminal cancer, and suicide. It was if anything a bit unengaging, with some peripheral plotting which seemed to have no point. I think you have to be an Almodóvar admirer to like it.

Fun Fact: Tilda Swinton also, irritatingly, plays her own daughter.