Review by Mushroomoes

I didn't think Almodovar could make a movie worse than I'm So Excited but The Room Next Door fails in almost every respect, with its chief culprit the usually competent Tilda Swinton. Here, she inhabits each scene with the emotional vacuity of a robot, employing an accent so weirdly deadpan that it actually becomes funny at times. Julianne Moore does her best to hold the thing together but even her efforts fall flat. There is no chemistry between the leads. The unrealistic dialogue feels as if it was created by Google Translate and there's some clumsy politicking over climate change that is both clunky and eye-rolling. And there are several scenes that simply don't belong in the movie for they tell us nothing additional or important about any of the characters (a flashback to the Middle East, a visit to the gym and the scenes involving John Turturro). I can only assume that auteurs like Almodovar, whose best films are far behind him, are so well-regarded that no one is his orbit, including the performers, dares tell him where he's going wrong.