Ingrid and Martha were close friends in their youth, when they worked together at the same magazine. Ingrid went on to become an autofiction novelist while Martha became a war reporter, and they were separated by the circumstances of life. After years of being out of touch, they meet again in an extreme but strangely sweet situation.
Ratings
Curator score: 4.5/10
IMDb: 6.8/10
Letterboxd: 3.38/5
Rotten Tomatoes: 80%
Metacritic: 70
TMDB: 6.7/10
Director
Pedro Almodóvar
Production
El Deseo, Sony Pictures Classics
Cast
Julianne Moore, Tilda Swinton, John Turturro, Alessandro Nivola, Juan Diego Botto, Raúl Arévalo, Victoria Luengo, Alex Høgh Andersen, Esther-Rose McGregor, Alvise Rigo, Melina Matthews, Sarah Demeestere, Anh Duong, Bobbi Salvör Menuez, Annika Wahlsten, Shane Woodward, Paolo Luka Noé, Cristina Kovani, Nya Bowman, Dora Rowdon
Where to watch
Netflix
Curator Review
Verdict
An elegant, emotionally serious chamber drama with strong performances and Almodóvar’s vivid visual sense, but it’s also likely to divide viewers on its heightened dialogue and deliberately artificial tone. If you’re open to a stylized, intimate meditation on friendship, mortality, and chosen family, it’s worth a look; if you need naturalism or a tightly grounded script, it may frustrate you.
Best for
Almodóvar fans
Viewers who like intimate two-hander dramas
Fans of stylized, emotionally heightened cinema
People drawn to stories about friendship, mortality, and autonomy
Audiences who enjoy strong lead performances and rich color design
Skip if
You prefer naturalistic dialogue and understated acting
You want a plot-driven drama with lots of incident
You’re allergic to melodrama or overtly theatrical screenwriting
You need a film with a broadly accessible emotional tone
Overview
The Room Next Door is Almodóvar in a more restrained, autumnal register: still lush, still theatrical, but focused on two women talking through the shape of a life. The premise is simple, almost spare, and the film leans on mood, performance, and the director’s instinct for color and emotional geometry rather than narrative complexity.
Worth noting
Julianne Moore and Tilda Swinton give it gravity and poise, and the movie’s best moments come from the way it treats companionship as something both practical and profound. It’s a film about intimacy under pressure, about the stories people tell themselves to survive, and about how dignity can look in the face of loss.
Bottom line
That said, the stylization is not for everyone. Some viewers will find the dialogue too polished or self-conscious, and the emotional register can feel more designed than discovered. But if you respond to Almodóvar’s blend of melodrama, wit, and melancholy, this is a thoughtful, beautifully composed late-career work.
Top Letterboxd reviews
ram<3 (4★) · 6193 likes
could’ve been gayer
davidehrlich (3★) · 4688 likes
oh to live in Pedro Almodóvar's America, where an AirBnB might just casually have a copy of John Huston's "The Dead" on DVD.
Jay (4★) · 4403 likes
convinced at this point tilda swinton does not show up to set unless she’s playing minimum two roles
júlia (4.5★) · 3628 likes
"she looks so like you" almodóvar was so real for this
Tom (2★) · 3470 likes
it’s like they put the script through google translate 4 times