The English-language debut from Almodóvar finds the Spanish auteur in a late-style mediation on death and meaning, without losing his sense of humour and humanity. New Yorker and successful auto-fiction writer Ingrid (Julianne Moore) finds the predictable rhythms of her life disrupted by the reappearance of old friend Martha (Tilda Swinton), a former war correspondent who is grappling with a terminal diagnosis and highly experimental immunotherapy treatment. Over a series of frank conversations, the two women consider their lives in retrospect: mistakes and triumphs, and the fear of a drawn-out ending to their stories. When Martha decides to take her fate into her own hands, Ingrid is torn between her fear of doing the wrong thing and her loyalty to their rediscovered relationship.

Possibly in response to an aging population (along with everything else that's happened over the last few years) we've seen a boom in films about memory, growing old and coming to terms with mortality— but few have approached it with the unflinchingly straightforward view 75-year-old Almodóvar takes in The Room Next Door. At first the bluntness with which Ingrid and Martha discuss their situation may elicit some awkward laughter, but as Moore and Swinton wade deeper into these murky waters the simplistic dialogue is overwhelmed by monumental dual performances of women on the edge of the unknown. The colour, warmth and humour of Almodóvar shines through in what is ultimately a hopeful reflection on a life lived.