The Room Next Door

The Room Next Door: I heard a quote once, “There are no bad Mike Leigh films.” I have also said this as the days to the public screening of the latest film in his series in Toronto and the Ebert Director Award presentation attracted. Nevertheless, this should also be written about Pedro Almodovar, who decided to spend the last decade of his career reminding us that He’s one of those geniuses.

His most recent won the Golden Lion in Venice just recently, and quite deservedly so. In his very first English-language full-length, he managed to retain all of the dramatic spirit requiring the best out of his marquee cast, who in turn gave some of their finest performances to date, while weaving a tale with heart renchingly powerful.

“The Room Next Door” is about many issues, but two stuck with me most importantly and closely, and Almadovar’s familiar-weird melodramatic voice nicely articulates them. The first is, and it appeared before as well, that at times, there are no acts more fulfilling than just being there for someone.

When cancer sick Matilda (Tilda Swinton, one of the top five roles in her entire career) begs hi old friend Ingrid (Julianne Moore) to come with her on a trip that she plans to never come back from, this is her business because, like the title says, she only requires love, not help whereheartedness explains the ending of this business in The Room Next Door.

It sounds somewhat rude, but it is comforting that there are people who care about us somewhere in this universe, even if they cannot know us or if they even are. One story of this theme is about Matilda’s daughter, who does not communicate with the mother.

She had a father, and he is the one sad about the absence of anyone kind next door. Not to mention Matilda’s career being a demanding one that is physically and emotionally pressing and has deadlines.

Deepest of all, there is something beautiful in every single moment on this earth, if you choose to find it. In its adaptation, these lines from Joyce’s short story included: “…the snow falling quietly out of the universe, and quietly falling down, even as the falling of the last end of all things, upon the living and upon dead”. Everything has a life cycle, and the snow does fall.

This beautifully poignant thematic undertow receives a stunning rebuttal in an old beau of Matilda and Ingrid showcased gloriously by John Turturro. He has become such a misanthrope when it comes to the rest of the world that he simply cannot comprehend why people give birth to more children.

Degenerating his attitude towards human civilization is justifiable, but he does not step out from the fog of despondency; in contrast, a woman who is within the horizon of scheming her escape from the earth finds beauty in the falling snow.

One could analyze “The Room Next Door” in a myriad of ways, but this is unequivocally a Pedro film in respect to craft. In a lot of ways, Almodovar’s costume designers went with Bina Daigeler’s (who received an oscar for ‘Mulan’) look.

This is an American film, and this is such an almodovar followed throughout the film that it seems absurd to say that he left his bright colors in spain. The same may be said about the Almodóvanesque AirBnB where Ingrid and Matilda rent a room: it’s possible or fictive but not possible.

The combined style of the dialogues that permeate his works and heighten the melodrama has also been delivered in a way that has irritated some critics who feel the constant viscosity sounds out of place – I would interject this same thing holds true for his Spanish pictures. Almodovar’s films are transparent in their artificiality. They revel in it, and exploit it to tear your heart into pieces.

It is rather engaging humorously considering that the latest work one of our most remarkable contemporary filmmakers Mike is a subconscious attempt to avoid such things artifice if any.

For the incessantly brilliant Director/Writer Mike Leigh Hard truths means a return to the contemporary narrative (after 2014’s Mr Turner and 2018’s Peterloo) where he collaborates with his Secret and Lies leading lady Marianne Jean puppet whose childhood has been such a wreck that all she seems to do is hurt people.

What appears, at first, to be a Leightonian take on “Curb Your Enthusiasm”, only better because of the presence of the most hilarious yet cynical protagonist ever even if for a while, sooner or later transforms when ‘Hard Truths’ gathers the focus, and all sympathy from the viewer shifts to emotions and feelings of trauma, mourning and realization that too many bad decisions have been taken, and there is no way to get rid of the hated miserable life.

I doubt it delivers in the end like the best of Leigh’s for Jean-Baptiste is breathtaking with the performance but still, it is great to see Leigh back in the dramatic space. He belongs there.

Jean-Baptiste performs the role of Pansy married to Curtley (David Webber), father of Moses (Tuwaine Barrett). She has fiery contempt towards her family with good justification. She takes her anger over a husband who neither seems to love her anymore (she may never have loved him) and fitted an ambitious adult son with an intense obsession with cleaning that bordered on insanity.

She wipes everything down once again, rendering her home discomfitingly clean considering that of her sister (Michele Austin) who is filled with warm and lively colors around her home.

His creativity in direction has begun to gather admiration over the recent times especially for his practices of using subtle visual counters and themes. (It helps to have the great Dick Pope as a D.P. again, of course.)

The second half of “Hard Truths” becomes a hell its easy to call Karen Hell in short and for the most part rage fests where storm Pansy and unbelievably yells at sales staff, cashier or so and everyone who apes even slightly rude to her. It is almost a reaction to how one would describe post-Leigh masterpiece “Happy-Go-Lucky” and call this one “Angry-Go-Lucky.”

It is then that the curtain comes down as Pansy’s sister demands, they go up to Grandma’s grave on Mother’s Day. The following scenes allows Jean-Baptiste to tap into an emotional range, which is quite surprising as it’s never really shown. Here is a woman who holds forth to an interruption about her anger, but lacks the ability to articulate why she is upset.

Pansy is arguably one of the most unpleasant people, both to strangers and even her closest family members. It is hard for Leigh and for Jean-Baptiste to sympathize with someone who, after having dealt with so much resentment, can only express raw emotions since it is all too hard on her and nothing else seems appropriate.

I get that the author wants the ending in this case to remain somewhat obscure not that it adds to the suspense – it’s no spoiler here that Leigh couldn’t be bothered to start wrapping all the loose emotional end.

Still, i am not inclined to stating that this has emerged quite up to snuff when compared to the best of his films. Though that feeling can change on the second viewing anyway – the man’s works are frequently better on the second and even the third runs. Not so long ago it was the impression that one could restate; because, after all, Mike Leigh is simply not capable of making poor films.

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