A kickless dud of an action comedy

 

Ariana DeBose's portrayal of Anita in West Side Story earned her an Oscar for best supporting actress in 2022.  Ke Huy Quan won an  Oscar for best supporting actor in 2023, playing a character who vaulted through multiple universes in Everything Everywhere All at Once.

   The two Oscar-winning actors are teamed in Love Hurts, a skimpy action comedy in which Quan gets most of the attention. Director Jonathan Eusebio lands a few bloody high shots (the view through a hole that has been blown in a man's head) but seldom connects when it comes to laughs.

    Love Hurts' major accomplishment involves brevity: It's 83 minutes long.

    The story begins with a cliched premise: Marvin Gable, a ludicrously joyful real estate agent, is drawn back into the assassin's life he believed he had abandoned.

     A poor excuse of a plot kicks off on Valentine's Day after Knuckles (Daniel Wu), Marvin's crime czar brother, tries to punish DeBose's character for taking mob money.

    Marvin, who once did his brother's bidding, had been ordered to kill DeBose's Rose. He didn't follow through. Now, she's back.

    Quan seems to be working way too hard. DeBose has too little to do, and the pair generates little by way of the rom-com chemistry that's supposed to provide heart.

    A gaggle of uninteresting thugs -- one played by Marshawn "Beastmode" Lynch -- doesn't add much either. 

   Some scenes simply don't pay off. Ashley (Lio Tipton) plays Gable's assistant at the real estate office. She falls for the brutal Raven (Mustafa Shakir), who wins her over with his sensitive, if unexpected, poetry. Sean Astin has a nice turn as Marvin's boss. 

   A duo of uninteresting thugs -- Marshawn "Beastmode" Lynch and André Eriksen-- doesn't add much either. 

   Might as well follow the movie's lead and keep things short. Cartoonish and forgettable, Love Hurts  proves a kick less dud.

A muddled debut and a school conflict

   Lineage doesn't necessarily matter when it comes to filmmaking, but it's difficult to begin a review of Armand, a stylistically muddled Norwegian thriller from director Halfdan Ullmann Tondel, without mentioning Ullmann Tondel's grandparents, director Ingmar Bergman and actress Liv Ullmann. 

   Safe to say Tondel doesn't seem intimidated by his family's achievements. Mixing straightforward storytelling with surreal touches, Tondel latches onto a subject that's rich with possibility, a clash between parents at a grade school where six-year-old Armand (never seen) has been accused by Jon, another unseen student, of bullying and sexual abuse. 

   Wisely, Tondel focuses on parents not children. The school's publicity-shy principal (Oystein Roger) insists that Armand's mother (Renate Reinsve) meet with Jon's parents (Ellen Dorrit Petersen and Endre Hellestveit). Reasonable adult behavior is supposed to follow. Sure.

   Sounds intriguing, but the movie plays as if Tondel hadn't sorted through the screenplay's thickening web of issues and subtext; he veers away from the story's psychological and social dynamics to  perplexing effect, even including a couple of dance numbers.

    It may not ignite, but Tondel has the necessary kindling to stoke plenty of dramatic fire. 

   An actress by trade, Elizabeth has had a prior relationship with Jon's parents. Turns out Jon's mother was the sister of Elizabeth's late husband, who -- we're told  -- committed suicide.

   Perhaps to add satirical garnish, Tondel also deals with the school's timidity. The principal puts a novice teacher (Thea Lambrechts Vaulen) in charge of the pivotal meeting between parents. She's supposed to smooth things over.

   Eventually, the principal and another administrator (Vera Veljovic-Jovanovic) join the conference, which gets nowhere and is disrupted by the administrator's frequent nosebleeds, a bizarre intrusion that, like much else about the movie, leaves you wondering what Tondel had in mind. 

   It's difficult to fault Tondel for being too cautious; he includes a surprising scene in which Elizabeth goes on an uncontrolled and extended laughing jag. Perhaps she's nervous or maybe she glimpses an inherent absurdity in the idea of a six-year-old boy being capable of sexual abuse. 

   Whatever's happening, Reinsve (The Worst Person in the World and A Different Man) bravely goes along for the ride.

   I lost hope when, late in the picture, Elizabeth and the school's custodian begin to dance. The best I can say about Tondel's effort is that it's interesting watching him try to hit all manner of notes. The resultant head-scratcher of a movie makes you hope Tondel eventually hits his stride.

   

She battled a dictatorial regime

 

   In 1970, Brazil was in the midst of a military dictatorship that would continue for another 15 years. Director Walter Salles (Central Station) revisits that time to tell a story in which the unprincipled and murderous exercise of power upends the life of a family. 

   I'm Still Here, Salles's Oscar-nominated movie, offers a deeply moving account of damages wrought by a regime that brooked no opposition.

   When the movie opens, life for the Paiva family seems to be unfolding normally. Mom (Fernanda Torres) floats in the waters at a Rio beach.  Her kids play in the sand. Mom, Dad, and their five children seem to have escaped the worst effects of state-sponsored oppression. It's the Christmas season of 1970.

    Despite some ominous forebodings, these early scenes brim with the warmth and energy of a well-educated family. As he should, Salles encourages us to hope that we're about to embark on an irresistible story about a household made lively by visitors and genial byplay.

     That hope shatters when thugs arrest Dad, a former legislator who's suspected of aiding rebellious dissidents. Mom's arrest and interrogation follows. Released after 12 days, Mom begins the fraught task of keeping her family together. Dad never will be seen again.

   On one level, I'm still Here can be seen as a tribute to the sacrifices and courage of Eunice Paiva, a mother who valiantly struggles against the dictatorial tide. A memorable blend of anxiety, fortitude, grit, and grief, Torres's performance qualifies as one of the year's best.

   But Salles never loses sight of the cause of the distress we're seeing. Every scene strikes at us like an alarm bell about the dangers of unchecked power.

    Viewers can debate whether Salles erred by including a late-picture scene set in 2014.  In this segment, Eunice tries to obtain official acknowledgment that her husband was murdered. 

    In an epilogue, Fernanda Montenegro, Torres's real mother and the star of Salles's much-admired Central Station, plays the aging Eunice Paiva, a nice  bit of casting that honors Salles's actresses, as well as the Paiva family.

    Though softer than earlier scenes, Salles's end-of-picture moves can't relieve the sharp pain of a disturbing story, even as he celebrates one family's capacity for maintaining its humanity while never abandoning hope that Rubens Paiva's fate, and by extension the fates of many others, will be known. 

    Marcelo Paiva, the only son in a family of daughters, wrote the memoir on which the story is based, but it's arguable that the movie's commitment and conviction received a boost from Salles's personal knowledge of a family he often visited as a teenager. 

   With an international rise in oligarchy and authoritarianism, I'm Still Here can't help but serve as a cautionary tale about the fragility of what often are perceived as inviolable rights. That's a point worth remembering: When thugs are unleashed, nothing is guaranteed. 

An Oscar postscript 

I'm Still Here received what has been called a surprise Oscar nomination in the Best Picture category. Moreover, Torres received a nomination for best actress. Some analysts argue that this year's nominations have a decidedly liberal tilt, possibly in reaction to a global tilt toward authoritarianism. Maybe, but I'm Still Here would have been a worthy choice regardless of the current political environment. It's a fine movie.

Notes: David Lynch, the Oscars

    So where was I? 

    I haven’t posted in a while, primarily because I’ve been out of the country on an important mission; i.e., avoiding movies, news, and all the other things to which I usually pay inordinate amounts of attention. 

   But I’m back and ready to roll. More or less.

   First off, David Lynch, one of cinema’s most revered image makers died at the age of 78 on January 15. Much has been written about Lynch since his passing, so I’ll refrain from contributing to the appreciation barrage. Look at any number of headlined pieces and you’ll get the gist about an artist some saw as their personal tour guide through America’s darker side.

    I discovered Lynch at a long-ago screening of Eraserhead in 1977. Footnote: The theater in which I saw the movie no longer exists. I mention this because many theaters have vanished as Lynch's generation of filmmakers wanes.

    I’ve had mixed reactions to Lynch’s movies with Mulholland Drive (2001) emerging as my runaway favorite. I understand why devotes of Blue Velvet are so ardent about that movie, but I’m not one of its fans. We can argue about that some other time.

    I met Lynch once but can’t remember much about him, other than that he smoked at a time when cigarettes were no longer easily tolerated. He also said it was OK for people -- or maybe he meant just me -- not to understand everything about his movies. He wasn't being snide or condescending; he seemed to be saying that he knew that it might not be possible to connect every dot in a Lynchian puzzle. Maybe he wanted that way. 

   Lynch began as an art student; I’ve generally regarded his movies as the work of a painter who became fascinated with moving pictures. An artist with a taste for ambiguity and mystery, Lynch had a gift for creating images that suggested more than they ever spelled out.

     When I think of Lynch, I also remember the Lady in the Radiator singing the song In Heaven in   Eraserhead. “In heaven, everything is fine,'' the lyric went. The song was both sincere, and unsettling. In Heaven teased us with hope and delusion, teetering on the edge of irony without falling into its smothering abyss.

      We’ll probably have to wait a long time before another Lynch appears. Idiosyncratic talent is rare in all fields. Lynch received an honorary Oscar for lifetime achievement in 2017, but he remained an independent voice in movies. 

      All of which brings me to this year's Oscar nominations which were announced on Thursday, Jan. 23. 

     Overall, the nominations didn’t offer much to complain about.

     I would have liked to have seen Marianne Jean-Baptiste nominated for best actress. Her performance as the massively embittered Pansy in Hard Truths was more than notable.

     I would have nominated Sebastian Stan, a best actor nominee, for his work in A Different Man, not for his portrayal of Donald Trump in The Apprentice. 

     Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor received no nomination, but her performance in Nickel Boys, though small,  gave the movie its aching heart. 

     In case you've been wondering, India’s All We Imagine as Light wasn't eligible for a foreign-language Oscar nod because it wasn't submitted by for consideration by any of its co-producing nations or by India, where the film is set.

     I shed no tears that Angelina Jolie was bypassed for her portrayal of Maria Callas in Maria or that Nicole Kidman was overlooked for playing a CEO who wanted to be sexually dominated in Babygirl.  Both actresses should continue to thrive.

     One last thought: I'm Still Here received what has been called a surprise nomination in the Best Picture category. Moreover, Fernanda Torres, as a mother trying to protect her family during the Brazilian military dictatorship of the 1970s, won a nomination for best actress. 

    Some analysts argue that this year's nominations have a decidedly liberal tilt, possibly in reaction to a Trump resurgence and European authoritarianism. Maybe, but I'm Still Here would have been a worthy choice no matter what ways the political winds are blowing.  It's a fine movie, and, by the way, it's also nominated in the best foreign-language film category.

    Enough. The Academy Awards  … to use a mildly hollow but appropriate expression — are what they are.

    It's possible that Lynch, to begin where I started, will be remembered long after many of this year's Academy Award nominees are forgotten. 

   So, remember, if your favorites aren't honored or if, you're among those who don't understand the furor over Amelia Perez, or if you think The Brutalist was too long, even with a 15-minute intermission, or if you couldn't quite adjust to the subjective camerawork of Nickel Boys, or you if you haven't seen The Apprentice, or if you puzzle about Wicked being the first film to receive 10 nominations but none for directing or writing (I read it somewhere),  or if you think Edward Berger, who directed best picture nominee Conclave, should have received a best-director nomination, console yourself, and remember these words from Eraserhead.

    “In heaven, everything is fine." Didn't David Lynch say so?

           

        

       

Covering a tragic Olympics

 

   On September 5, 1972, the Palestinian group Black September began its attack on Munich's Olympic Village. By the time the siege ended, 11 Israeli athletes had been murdered; five terrorists were killed, and one German police officer died. 

   Movies have taken note. In 1999, One Day in September won an Oscar for best documentary. In 2005, Steven Spielberg released Munich, which dealt with fallout from the attack.

   Now comes September 5, a movie focused on how ABC covered an event that presented a real-time challenge for a crew that was ready to cover Olympic competition, not a gripping international news event with life-and-death stakes.

    The strength of Swiss director Tim Fehlbaum's approach rests on the recognition that those covering the Olympics were presented with logistical and ethical challenges for which they had no real preparation. 

   How would an exhausted crew handle the first live TV  broadcast of act of terror? Might such coverage jeopardize the hostages? What standards of confirmation would be employed to ensure the accuracy of ABC's reporting?

    At one point during the 15-hour broadcast, the crew received a report that the hostages were safe. ABC broadcast the news and later aired a correction. The report was false. 

    The incident raises a key issue about journalism conducted on the fly: the conflict between the pressure to be first and the responsibility to be right.

    ABC sports chief, Roone Arledge (Peter Sarsgaard), fought to keep the story away from ABC's news division. He thought his crew was up to the task. John Magaro portrays Geoff Mason, the producer who found himself directing ABC's coverage; it was Mason's first day on the job. 

    Leonie Benesch plays Marianne Gebhardt, a German crew member who became invaluable because none of the others spoke German. Ben Chaplin plays Marvin Bader, the executive in charge of Olympic operations. 

    While tensions ripple through the control room, Arledge finds himself jockeying for satellite time. As questions about competition arise, Arledge must decide whether to give ABC's live feed to CBS when that network takes control of the satellite, which was being shared.

   Looking back on it, the events of September 5 seem more significant than the coverage, but for millions around the world, Munich became inseparable from what they saw on TV. Live coverage already had insinuated itself into news, but Munich ratified it, leaving us with a question we still haven't answered: How much do we need to see when the worst things happen? And who decides? 

    

A woman of boundless scorn

   Marianne Jean-Baptiste delivers a major performance in director Mike Leigh's Hard Truths, a piercing drama set in a British working-class milieu as seen through the lens of a Black family with Jamaican roots. Jean-Baptiste, who appeared in Leigh's Secrets & Lies (1999), provides the bitter glue that keeps Hard Truths on track.

  It's a bumpy ride, distinguished by Baptiste Pansy's biting resentment, which turns mean when directed outward. Pansy doesn't conceal her contempt for strangers, supermarket cashiers, salespeople, and, most of all, her husband (David Webber), a hard-working plumber who takes enough abuse from his wife to qualify him for sainthood. 

  Pansy's son (Tuwaine Barrett) fares no better. Addicted to video games, he's unable to kickstart a productive life. Small wonder he's stuck: Mom prefers hectoring to encouragement. 

   Fortunately, Leigh includes a counterbalance to Pansy's intractable sourness. Michele Austin plays Pansy's younger sister Chantelle, a cheerful hairdresser liked by everyone she encounters. Chantelle's two adult daughters (Ani Nelson and Sophia Brown) are equally engaging. They represent the branch of the family tree that still knows how to blossom.

   Despite her bitterness, which Leigh never fully explains, Pansy's family tries to stay even-keeled around her. They've had plenty of practice, and we feel their pain, the weight of their abidance.

   Leigh employs his usual method of story development. He invites his actors to invent characters and refines them throughout a lengthy process that results in a shooting script. The style leans heavily on character and emotional truth, overshadowing the importance of plot.

   At one point, Chantelle asks her sister to join her on Mother's Day for a visit to the cemetery where their mother is buried. The trip provides one more occasion for Pansy to rail about how life has short-changed her. 

     It's difficult to play a truly annoying character without alienating an audience. But before the movie ends, Jean-Baptiste has made it clear that Pansy's bitterness consumes her as much as it torments others.

   Like many embittered people, Pansy is driven by pain and fear, and Jean-Baptiste reveals the full measure of both. Pansy's anger is so deeply embedded, she may fear she'd vanish without it. 

    A memorable character, Pansy may remind you of someone in your family, albeit in an intensely magnified way. At least, I hope she's a heightened version of someone you might know.

   If not, you have my sympathy, as well as my respect for your ability to endure.

   

A bold refresh of a familiar genre

 Like many Americans, I knew little about Robbie Williams, a British pop star who began his ascent as a member of Take That, a boy band that scored big during the 1990s. In 1995, Williams set out on his own, scoring again as a solo act. Along the way, there were bouts with alcohol, drugs, and pop-star self-destruction.

   On the surface, Better Man -- a biopic about Williams's turbulent life -- seems depressingly generic. A driven young man is nearly ruined by fame but eventually rights his ship. So much for a story arc. 

  But Better Man does something novel to refresh a  familiar biopic approach. Evidently inspired by an acerbic Williams, who once described himself as a performing monkey, the movie depicts Williams as chimp. Ah, the burdens of being rich and famous.

   Director Michael Gracey (The Greatest Showman) employs a CGI chimpanzee, dropping the effect into a world populated by fully human actors who never react to the chimp as if there were anything unusual about him. The CGI chimp holds his own as a compelling performer, massive screw-up, and bubbling well of insecurity. (Jonno Davies does motion-capture work and dialogue. Williams does the movie's voice-over narration.)

   A four-part documentary series on Netflix offers a look at Williams in the flesh, but Better Man provides a good idea about Williams's turbulent life.

   Gracey includes lots of music and production numbers -- an extravagant performance of the number Rock DJ on London's Regent Street, for example, and another in which Williams hangs upside down over an audience. Well-staged, the musical numbers bristle with sugar-high energy.

   The movie's human cast (yes, it's a strange thing to say) includes Steve Pemberton as Williams's father, an aspiring singer who abandoned his family to pursue a career in show business. Despite some bitterness, Robbie seeks Dad's approval, never quite shedding his insecurities as a working-class kid from Stoke-on-Trent.

    Raechelle Banno portrays Nicole Appleton, a singer who steals Willams's heart. He's smitten, but problems disrupt the relationship. Appleton has an abortion, after her record company applies pressure. Motherhood evidently didn't mesh with Appleton's girl-band image.

    The movie makes no attempt to paper over Williams's bad-boy flaws, but wears them defiantly, as if patting itself on the back for honesty. 

    Before it's done Better Man goes full showbiz cornball, but it has plenty of verve and a gimmick that comes close to concealing the movie's cliches. Moreover, the movie's chimp-based ploy likely will remain unique. Can you imagine A Complete Unknown with a chimp version of Dylan? Didn't think so.

    Did the movie make me want to know more about Williams or listen to more of his music? Nah, but it made for a brisk two hours and 15 minutes, and Gracey and Williams certainly took a major risk by monkeying around with a well-worn formula. Sorry, I couldn't resist.

     

When second thoughts nag

   

   I've been having an argument with myself, and I'm inviting you to listen in. I don't second-guess a lot of things, but I make an exception when it comes to my work.

  Let me clarify: I've been thinking about director Pedro Almodovar -- not the person whom I've never met and have only seen once in person when both he and I were much younger and Almodovar was making his first big wave on the festival circuit with 1988's Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown.

   In the early 1980s, Almodovar, now 75, gained bad-boy notoriety for the gay tilt of his movies, which could seem shocking even as his native Spain shed the oppressive strictures of Franco rigidity. But Almodovar always has been too talented to be pushed into one more genre ghetto.

    Visually robust and thematically provocative, Almodovar has established himself as a significant  presence in the “art film” world. The auteur theory isn't talked about much anymore, but Almodovar qualifies as a bona fide auteur.

  I mention this because I just finished writing a negative review of Almodovar’s The Room Next Door, an adaptation of a 2020 novel by Ingrid Nunez. I’ve read Nunez, but not What Are You Going Through, the novel on which The Room Next Door is based and which I’ve learned is more discursive than Almodovar’s film. 

   Sadly, I found The Room Next Door surprisingly uninvolving. I seldom felt as if I were encountering a film in which style and story merged in vivifying ways. Offering only trace elements of the director's capacious talent, The Room Next Door isn't a typical Almodovar film. 

     The Room Next Door is also Almodovar's first English-language feature, but I didn’t dwell on the impact that might have had on the movie. Lingual landscape is also cultural landscape, but thoughts about something else have been nagging at me: how to think about potential shifts in an artist's approach.

     Almodovar tells the story of a terminally ill war correspondent (Tilda Swinton) who asks an old friend (Julianne Moore) to share a rented house in upstate New York. There, she plans to end her life by taking a pill she obtained on the dark web. 

     Why didn't a foray into such emotionally charged territory seem more grounded in the messy business of dying? 

     I’ve seen too many people die of cancer. None of them looked as well-kempt as Swinton for their date with the reaper. They may have been brave and composed on their deathbeds, but their bodies were being destroyed. It's difficult fully to understand the word “ravaged” until you’ve seen a body under malignant siege.

       So, there was that. At the same time, I wondered if I weren't being too rigid. Why must every Almodovar movie conform to my idea of what an Almodovar movie should be? At the same time, I saw no reason Almodovar couldn’t deal squarely with death while keeping his voice at full throttle. (For examples, see Almodovar's Volver (2006) and Pain and Glory (2019), movies in which death plays a role.)

        Questions and more questions kept tugging at my sleeve. Could Almodovar's decision to make a film in English have signaled his need to take a break from being the Almodovar of expectation? Should an artist be admired for trying to expand his or her range? Is it possible for a filmmaker to exhaust a particular style or, at minimum, need a refresh? Shouldn't such transformative efforts be supported? Or perhaps, I wondered, was the style of The Room Next Door not transformative enough?

       I haven't resolved these questions, nor do I want to recant my review. To check myself, I watched The Room Next Door twice and concluded that it might represent a mismatch between Almodovar and the movie's source material. Still, when serious filmmakers don't seem to be working at peak levels, they deserve more consideration than might be given to less ambitious efforts.

     To take another recent example, director Robert Eggers (The Witch, The Northman, and The Lighthouse) brings distinctive atmospheric artistry to horror. I don’t think Nosferatu, Eggers' latest, totally succeeded, but as a work of undeniable aspiration, it shouldn't be casually dismissed.

      Francis Ford Coppola couldn't have wanted to spend his life making Godfather movies. He’s always insisted on going his own way. But Megalopolis? In Coppola's case and in the case of some other filmmakers, one isn't just reviewing a single film but trying to understand where that film fits (or doesn't) into a career based on vision, acuity, and the ability to get under the skin and stay there.

      In his way, Almodovar may have been advocating for everyone being able to choose death if faced with an incurable illness that promises nothing but pain. I’ve known people, who, facing such illnesses, proceeded bravely and with resolve. Enough, as the saying goes, is enough.

        And, so, too, with this essay. Enough.

       Maybe I've misread Almodovar's movie, or perhaps the director has landed in the midst of a transition period, the kind of artistic purgatory where one keeps working while waiting for the heavenly call of renewal to sound. That’s what artists do. They work.

      As I said at the outset, I'm arguing with myself, turning my thoughts this way and that while living with the unavoidable prospect of never sticking a perfect landing. 

      

A woman opens death's door

     The Room Next Door, Pedro Almodovar's adaptation of author Sigrid Nunez’s 2020 novel, What Are You Going Through, marks the Spanish director’s first English-language feature. Almodovar,  best known for his long career in Spanish film,  previously made two short films in English. 

      Language aside, I’ve generally counted on Almodovar to refresh my eye. I don't consider this a small matter in the age of Marvel, CGI, and mega-make-up. Almodovar’s bold use of colors, his ability to build stories around distinctive faces, and his skill at spicing his movies with tension, eroticism, and melodrama have made him an internationally known auteur.

     Serious and emotionally measured, The Room Next Door comes across as an anemic helping of  Almodovar, a modest drama about death that flirts with a major idea about climate disaster as it searches for a human approach to the doom that awaits every individual.

  Tilda Swinton, who has worked with Almodovar before, plays Martha, a well-known war correspondent who has witnessed her share of battlefield death. Julianne Moore portrays Ingrid, a prominent author who early on learns that Martha has been hospitalized with terminal cancer. Once close, the two haven't seen each other in years.

    Ingrid visits Martha in the hospital, and their friendship renews -- albeit under extreme circumstances. Whatever relationship the two develop must end with grief.

    Whispers of plot emerge when an experimental treatment fails to halt the advance of Martha’s stage three cervical cancer. After exploring the dark web, Martha obtains a pill that will end her life. She's done with suffering.

     Martha asks Ingrid to join her in a sleek modern home in upstate New York where she’ll spend her remaining days. She doesn’t want Ingrid by her side when she dies, but she wants someone nearby, a person who’ll know that she's gone. 

      The screenplay leans on exposition to explain how Ingrid will escape criminal liability for Martha’s death. She faces exposure because New York has not yet legalized assisted death. Ingrid will also bring news of Martha's death to the daughter from whom the dying journalist has become estranged.

       The Room Next Door may be less stylish than other Almodovar films, but don't get the impression that Almodovar drains it of all color. The characters wear vividly colored clothes, and Almodovar doesn't neglect the film's interiors. Martha's design-oriented hospital room looks impervious to the smell of antiseptic, and Almodovar seldom meets a wall from which a painting can't be hung.

     But these touches don’t feel nearly as pleasurable as they have in previous Almodovar work; they're like footprints, reminders of the director’s presence rather than a fully realized expression of it.

       Mostly, The Room Next Door involves conversations between Martha and Ingrid, although at one point, a flashback reveals a memorable experience Martha had while covering the war in Iraq. Another scene, possibly the movie's most vivid, explains what happened to the father of Martha’s daughter, a Vietnam veteran who suffered from PTSD. 

       And, then, there's the film's thematic reach — or possibly its overreach. While looking after Martha, Ingrid meets with a writer (John Turturro) who lectures on the inevitability of climate-related catastrophe. Both Martha and Ingrid once had affairs with Turturro's character, who has become annoyingly stern. 

       Turturro’s appearance may be meant to highlight the gap between the prospect of global doom and the solitary death of one woman, but the horrors of climate change seem tacked on to an intimately told story about two women who share a profound experience.

      Appearing gaunt and pallid, Swinton makes Martha's death feel a bit abstract. Not her fault. Almodovar focuses on a woman who’s managing the messiness out of her death -- and perhaps out of the movie, as well. Moore makes Ingrid's openness apparent; she's uncertain about Martha's decision to end her life, but she's devoted to her friend.

     A thriller-like score by Alberto Iglesias vibrates beneath the movie's surface, but the music feels misplaced. I took that as a clue. Maybe this is a case of a mismatch between director and material. The Room Next Door didn't seem to give Almodovar or the story he tells enough room to breathe.