Room Next Door

 Yesterday evening, I finally watched "The Room Next Door". I must admit, I’d been wanting to see this film for a long time. Perhaps because two of my favorite actresses star in it - and let’s be honest, I could watch anything Tilda appears in. Even though I might not be the greatest fan of Almodóvar, the topic of euthanasia is one I’m deeply interested in.

I’ve always had this feeling that death is the ultimate solution - a choice that remains when it seems there’s no other way out. And bizarrely, as it may sound - I’ve always found a kind of comfort in that. I’m not saying I romanticize death or long for it, no. I don’t find anything poetic in it. It’s frightening, it brings pain  mostly to those who love the person passing away. But dying can be horrible, painful, and far from dignified. And in the end, it’s that one, final thing we face completely alone.

It’s a huge topic, difficult to approach, so individual and delicate. It holds so many aspects and layers that I find it hard to handle: artistically, spiritually, on any level. Perhaps that’s why I found this movie disappointing.

It is aesthetically beautiful but it doesn’t focus on suffering, pain, or fear. Two great-looking main characters, rich, highly intelligent, successful, go to a breathtaking place. First, we see beautiful New York, then a picture-perfect house near Woodstock - all of it like a cliché of grand scenery, straight out of a luxury lifestyle magazine. If this was intended to create some sort of ironic distance from the theme of euthanasia, it wasn’t enough. And if the purpose was not to depict pain or the bodily reality of dying, then the film should have offered something in its place -a deeper philosophy, emotional reckoning, inner conflict, or at least a quiet invitation to reflect. But it doesn’t.

Beneath all the surface polish, it feels like a mirage. The recollections are fragmentary, offering no real background - or at least none that carries meaningful weight in the larger arc of the story. The reminiscences, the remarks, they drift without anchoring. It’s as if there are many threads running in different directions, yet none of them ever meet. There is plot, yes, but no depth. It glides on the surface of meaning rather than diving into it.

And yes - I do understand the symbolism. The final act of putting on red lipstick just before dying. The open or closed doors. The tenderness and care Martha receives from her friend. The books they choose for her last read. The painting they pause to observe. I see those carefully placed images, and I recognize their intended meaning. But they don’t build a story. They don’t fill the silence. They remain small gestures suspended in beautiful air - and it’s not enough.

So in the end, I found myself asking: what was that all about? Did it answer any of my questions? Did it offer any new perspective, shake something inside me, change anything? No. It actually flattened everything. And it’s hard to find any purpose in that. It all felt fake.

Maybe that was the point - to aestheticize, to wash out, to distance, to mock? I’m not sure. But even if it was, it didn’t work - not for me. The film is, without doubt, visually stunning. But with such actors, and such a topic, I expected much, much more.

Pity.