by Mattie Lucas
Cinema from a Decidedly Queer Perspective
The Room Next Door | 2024
On paper, the mixture of Julianne Moore and Tilda Swinton in the first English language feature by Pedro Almodóvar sounds like a can't miss prospect. The basic ingredients are all there, bright colors (that red lipstick!), women in crisis, a sensually moody score by Alberto Iglesias, but The Room Next Door feels strangely cold and distant, a germ of an idea that never seems to fully get off the ground.
When was the last time you sat in a movie theater and felt like you were watching something so new and exciting that you wanted to levitate out of the theater when it was over? For me, that moment was this past weekend at a screening of Ryan Coogler's extraordinary new film, Sinners.