Pedro Almodóvar on ‘The Room Next Door’: “I Wanted a Light Movie About Mortality”

Warning: spoilers ahead for The Room Next Door

For fans of Pedro Almodóvar—the director best known for vibrant, colorful films with melodramatic characters and wild plot lines—his latest, the Venice-winning The Room Next Door, might feel like a departure. Compared to previous works, the Spanish filmmaker’s first full-length English-language feature is a relatively muted affair centered on a dark theme: death. But if you look closely, the 75-year-old’s new film is as Almodóvarean ever, from the poetic dialogue (at one point, James Joyce’s The Dead is quoted), to its electric hues.

Loosely based on What Are You Going Through, the 2019 novel by Sigrid Nunez, The Room Next Door stars Tilda Swinton (in a Golden Globe-nominated performance) as a successful war correspondent living alone in New York City. Her estranged daughter, Michelle, is somewhere off-screen. When Martha learns that she has a terminal form of cancer, she turns to an old Paper magazine colleague, Ingrid (Julianne Moore), to help her die on her own terms: peacefully, via a dark web-sourced euthanasia pill, in a tony rented house upstate. Although Ingrid wrestles with the ethical (and legal) implications of helping Martha end her life, she eventually agrees—and is transformed in the process.

In addition to exploring mortality, friendship, and the regrets we accumulate in life, The Room Next Door is also about motherhood. After Martha dies, her daughter visits Ingrid in the film’s final scene. She’s played by Swinton herself, suggesting a form of generational reincarnation. For Almodóvar, the story is part of a clear throughline through his body of work, which has always prioritized women’s stories. Below, the director shares his thoughts on color theory, plans for his next film, and the deeper meaning behind The Room Next Door’s ending:

Why, after 22 films, did you want to make your first English feature, and will you make another?

It was simply because the story called for it. Sigrid’s novel really hooked me, and the characters are American, so they should be speaking English. Before this, we were preparing a production with Cate Blanchett, but she was busy making a series with Alfonso Cuarón. If I find a story for Cate, Tilda or Julianne, then I will do it, but it always depends on the story. I’ve already written the script for the movie after this, and it’ll be in Spanish.

Did you write The Room Next Door with Tilda and Julianne in mind?

Tilda, definitely. After making The Human Voice, we developed a wonderful relationship. There was immediate chemistry between us. Because Tilda is so physically special, I wanted someone completely different for Ingrid, so Julianne was perfect.

You made the short films The Human Voice and Strange Way of Life in English, but some English-speaking audiences will be hearing your writing clearly here for the first time.

I know that my way of writing dialogues is not exactly realistic. People don’t speak Spanish the way they do in my movies, either. I didn’t want to change my identity as a writer. I wanted to keep the same flavor.

You worked with Oscar-nominated costume designer Bina Daigeler for this film, and though its themes are somber, the movie is still filled with your signature bright colors.

I didn’t want the film to be overly sentimental or cheesy, but I discovered that I really couldn’t change my color palette. Take the color red, which is so important in my films—there’s a red lamp, the red door, the red lipstick. The colors are there to represent Tilda’s past, because prior to getting sick, she was a very baroque woman. They represent that aspect of her life and her vitality. She’s deciding to do euthanasia. She wants to be the owner of her life and her death. I didn’t want to make a dark movie. I wanted a light movie about mortality.

Why were you drawn to that topic?

I think of mortality almost every day. It’s something that I’m very concerned about. I ask myself, how many movies will I do? I’d like to keep on making movies the rest of my life. So, how many years are ahead of me?

Spain is a non-denominational country, but the reality is that it’s Catholic. I was educated under a very strict Catholic education, but I don’t believe in that god. I really would like to, but faith is a gift. It’s not something that you can create by yourself. And nobody gave me that gift. So given that, I don’t have a very clear vision of the afterlife. That doesn’t mean I’m not a spiritual person, and that I don’t experience spirituality through my relationships and my life. But it does give me a very clear sense of finality. And in many ways, like Julianne’s character, I somewhat fear death. The movie is very spiritual. When they go to the house in the woods, I photographed them as if they were ghosts moving through that space.

You released a collection of essays this fall, The Last Dream, and the titular story is about your mother’s death. At one point, you write, “My mother took her leave of this world exactly as she would have wished.” Were you thinking about her when you made this movie?

One of the things the death of my mother taught me is that when people leave, their spirit remains. It lingers. I feel her presence, and that’s a relief for me. In the movie, Martha doesn’t disappear completely. In Julianne’s final scene with the cop, you can see she’s much stronger. She’s inherited that fortitude from Martha, which now lives on within her. It’s a transference. Now, Ingrid can share those stories with Michelle, Martha’s daughter. It’s almost like another movie starts at the end of this one.

Speaking of, what’s next?

The next film that I’m shooting also revolves around the female universe. Some women are alone, some are badly paired up. It revolves around self-fiction and the fine line between writing your own story versus writing stories that don’t belong to you, that reveal too much about people around you.

You mentioned wanting to work with Zendaya. Perhaps a role for her?

I would love to work with Zendaya. She’s a great actress who has been underestimated. I made that comment, also, because of the work of her stylist [Law Roach], during the promotion of Dune: Two. I mean, he thought about Thierry Mugler in the ’90s—I knew Thierry at that time—and went to the archives and found this specific metal outfit. It was perfect for her. I was quite impressed by that. It’s fashion, but there’s a lot of work behind it.

The Room Next Door plays in select US theaters starting December 20, before a wider rollout in January 2025.