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There are many, many International directors who have moved to Hollywood over the years. This is no big surprise; America has the largest film industry in terms of reach and revenue. There is potential award recognition to be had too; if you look at all of the directors who have won Best Director at the Oscars in the last fifteen years, twelve of them actually come from countries other than America (although Christopher Nolan and Chlóe Zhao have never really made films outside of The States). Yep, if you are a film maker and are interested in commendation from your peers and commercial success on a global scale then the USA where you want to be.

This isn’t new of course, look at Michael Curtiz and Otto Preminger back in the 40s and 50s, who like many since, Denis Villeneuve and Yorgos Lanthimos included, seemed to settle in the US once they’ve made the initial switch. Others do go back and forth, like Alfonso Cuarón and J.A. Bayona, and some make a single movie in Hollywood and then completely return to their own countries such as Park Chan Wook, Jacques Audiard and Jean-Pierre Jeunet. So many of the big foreign directors have made at least one film in The States though, even Truffaut and Godard. Those like the Dardenne Brothers, Krzysztof Kieslowski and Akira Kurosawa who resisted, are the exception to the rule.

As was Pedro Almodóvar until now. Why now might be the question. After forty six years and twenty two previous films he has already enjoyed huge success and garnered much praise but has never before been apparently tempted to make films in any language other than his native Spanish. This, his new film, is still mostly shot in Madrid to be fair but is adapted from an American book, has a pair of lead actors hailing from North Carolina and London respectively, is set in New York and is his first made in English. 

Those two actors are Julianne Moore and Tilda Swinton and I suspect this was the draw. Almodóvar has long worked with incredible female performers and these two are at the absolute top of their game. The movie is a real two hander as well. The story has them playing old friends who reconnect following one of them receiving a cancer diagnosis and it mostly involves them talking while wearing stunning clothes and sitting or walking in amazing locations. Seeing them play off one another is one of the biggest attractions for the audience too and it doesn’t disappoint. One of the characters is an author, which is not an uncommon profession for women in films, and the other is a war correspondent, which after Civil War and Lee is not an uncommon profession for women in films that have been released this year even if it it might have been before. Both have faced up to death in different ways but now one of them is potentially facing death as an apparent certainty it re-examines their nature and dynamic. 

It has to be said that this is not one of Almodóvar’s best films but I don’t think he intended it to be. It is a relatively small piece with minimal action or even any great conflict or surprise. It focuses instead is on a contemplation of life and the decisions we make and it has a gentle power. It covers similar ground to the Colin Firth and Stanley Tucci film Supernova from four years ago, but it much more measured and as a result considerably less heartrending, yet still it says what it wants to with a confident voice and leaves an impact. 

The script does at first feel forced and oddly florid, certainly you don’t believe real people would ever talk like this. It is tempting to suggest this is because Almodóvar is working in a language other than his own for the first time and something is getting lost in translation. My Spanish is not great but I’ve never thought this about the dialogue I’ve read in the subtitles of his other movies and this would be oddly clumsy for a director of his usual precision. There is a poetry to the film as a whole and maybe the choice of words and sentence construction are a part of this. Maybe it is not meant to feel real because facing mortality in loved ones never does. Ultimately it all gives way to a moving and honest portrayal of the likely end of a life. Pragmatism can feel like cold selfishness, bravery is not a choice and the past does suddenly become more than ever relevant to the present. It is all here and it is beautifully handled. 

I’m sure this doesn’t mean that all of Pedro Almodóvar’s films will be in English from here on in, but for someone who has dominated international cinema without operating outside of his own country it is right that this is still the product of a man working on his own terms. Hollywood has never lured him before and it hasn’t now. There is a trend in this medium for artists from around the World to professionally migrate to America and with The Room Next Door Almodóvar has become a part of it without becoming a part of it.