Not unlike with my last post on Women Talking, when it was first announced in late 2023 that Pedro Almodóvar was going to direct his English feature-length debut with The Room Next Door, I wondered if there might be a role for Meryl. Based on the novel entitled What Are You Going Through by Sigrid Nunez, my understanding was that it was about two women friends over fifty who share some kind of secret. We knew that Almodóvar and Meryl had previously planned to work together on Julieta many years before, so it didn't seem out of this world to wonder if maybe they'd finally get to connect. Well, that didn't last long, as shortly after, Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore were cast as the two friends.
I would recast Meryl in the role of Swinton's character, Martha, who's battling terminal cancer and doesn't want to endure the gradual pain and decline of the illness. She reconnects with an old author friend (Moore), Ingrid, with whom she used to work at a magazine. Martha asks Ingrid to stay with her at a rented house, and to be there when she takes a euthanasia pill. Ingrid hesitatingly agrees. The two get reacquainted, and Martha shares the background of her relationship with her estranged daughter, Michelle, whose father was a Vietnam war vet with PTSD who later remarried but died trying to save non-existent people from a house fire. Ingrid eventually finds Martha dead on the patio, and she has to defend herself against a religious policeman who suspects Ingrid knew/participated in Martha's taking of her own life, which is illegal. John Turturro plays a writer friend of Ingrid's (who happened to be a former lover to both Ingird and Martha), and he helps her with finding a lawyer who can help deal with the aftermath of Martha's death. Ingrid calls Michelle, and the two stay at the house together. The end.
Almodóvar definitely has a distinct style in his directing and choice of cinematography. The movie is very colorful, the dialogue is a bit melodramatic (but it works), and the characters and scenes always feel like they might be in a dream. This is not unlike my experience in watching Julieta, and if Meryl had originally been interested in doing that film, and had been familiar with Almodóvar's work, I imagine she would've expected it. It's also a great character to unpack. Yes, we've seen her suffer with cancer in One True Thing, and a bit in August: Osage County. And there's a bit of that in this movie. But this character is sort of taking the bully by the horns in controlling the exact moment of when it all ends. I've mentioned a couple of times I think in this latest bout of recasting posts how Meryl is drawn to difficult things. Tackling a situation where a character has decided to euthanize herself, and the tricky scenario it would create when considering asking someone to be there with you, and seeing that play out...it's good stuff.
I couldn't find a great clip of Swinton, but that was gives you a sense of the movie's tone. Almodóvar has the movie set in New York City and upstate New York, but to me, the film looks very European. Not surprising that some of the scenes were shot in Madrid. I remember seeing an interview with Moore and Swinton where one of them said that the film is Pedro's vision of what upstate New York looks and/or feels like.
The question comes to mind of whether or not Meryl would be too old for this movie. I argue no. Swinton and Moore are both about ten years younger than her, but we also know that Meryl can easily play someone even today who's believable to be in her early to mid 60s. Just look at The Devil Wears Prada 2. She looks incredible and youthful in how she moves. I don't think she'd have any issue portraying Martha here. I do, however, think that pairing her with someone closer to her own age would be better, as the pair are meant to be contemporaries as far as I can tell, and they're known to have shared the same lover in Turturro's character. Just feels more like they should be similar ages. I wonder if Michelle Pfeiffer would've been a good option for Ingrid. Still has that kind of sophisticated polish with which Moore imbues Ingrid, but Pfeiffer just feels a bit more of Meryl's generation to me, and it would be amazing if they worked together!
The Room Next Door received relatively strong reviews, and won the Golden Lion Award at the Venice International Film Festival. It holds a score of 81% on Rotten Tomatoes, and a 70 on Metacritic. Swinton was often singled out as best in show, and she earned a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress in a Drama.
I was so hoping Meryl would be cast in this. But having seen it, I would have loved to have seen Meryl in Julianne’s role, not Tilda’s. We’ve seen Meryl in roles where she is weakened by illness a few times, and there is an icy reserve to Tilda’s performance that feels very specific to her skill set. I’m reminded of Marvin’s Room and how pleased I was that Meryl ended up taking the sister-to-the-main-character role rather than the more obvious, challenging character that Diane Keaton played (I believe in an earlier iteration, Meryl was attached to play Keaton’s role). Sometimes it’s more exciting to see Meryl not driving the plot but responding to it.
ReplyDeleteJulianne Moore is obviously one of the greats, but I felt that there were layers to her character that could have been explored more deeply. With Meryl, I know she would have fully explored them and added something surprising. Moore, for all her brilliance, plays this as you would expect. Meryl’s gift, as one critic put it, is “zigging” where others “zag”.
Also, I’d love to see Tilda and Meryl playing off each other. The scene in Adaptation is too brief and Tilda doesn’t have much to do.
Despite my preference, there is one counterargument that calls everything into question: Tilda’s second role in The Room Next Door.
My jaw dropped in the cinema when she appears as her character’s estranged daughter. It’s a stunning transformation and reveals the extent of Tilda’s brilliance. That ending was such a strange but classic Almodóvarian twist that few other actors could have pulled off.
Meryl is one of those few and I’d have relished to see her playing her own daughter just minutes after the mother character dies. The opportunity for nuance there is endless and I’d love to see what Meryl would have done.
I dare say that that alone would have pushed Meryl in the Oscar conversation. Tilda, despite winning an AA earlier in her career, doesn’t have the same clout with the Academy and clearly doesn’t care about awards, which is likely why the Oscar’s slept on this achievement.
It's so interesting you mention preferring Meryl in the Moore role, because I totally considered that as well. You make good points about they "why" and I admit that I tend to get more attracted to the flashier/driving role. But seeing what choices Meryl would've made in that other role would be so fun. And maybe it would've actually worked out having Meryl show up (had she been in Swinton's role) as the daughter character. The character might've been aged up a bit, but if Swinton could do it, not sure why Meryl couldn't have. Such a missed opportunity.
DeleteI still hope that they may collaborate on a future project. Having said that, I was really underwhelmed by The Room Next Door.
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