Talk about a way to scare off big audiences: use the last lines of a James Joyce short story as a key motif in your project. Transparency: Through accidental research, those last lines of Joyce’s short story “The Dead” rank among my favorite, words I read once and left on a shelf, then re-explored and better absorbed on a whim while picking various books of mine when looking for an ideal, universal ending-thought to use in a piece I was writing. I discarded Joyce’s line because of a specific reference to weather that might not suit regions south of the border but in my mind hung onto the concept of snow falling equally on the living and the dead. Too esoteric? Well, filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar heads that way in The Room Next Door. Writing his screenplay from a novel by Sigrid Nunez, Almodóvar presents two women reunited after many years. Julianne Moore plays Ingrid, a best-selling author, who upon learning of buddy Martha’s fatal cancer diagnosis, visits her. Years fall away and the two reconnect, first with hope and then with Martha’s request: please be in the room next door when I die. Already gaunt with the sphinxlike
cheekbones of a cat, Tilda Swinton exudes the acceptance and pain of facing a final verdict—hence those lines by James Joyce. Not Almodóvar in his famous Women on the Verge comic mode, but his distinct style remains with a penchant for bright colors and melodramatic moments that he grounds in reality. The serious topic bypasses those thriving on fast-paced visuals, but—aided by sensitive work from his fabulous stars—Almodóvar reaches that universal observation about the basics of life. As he and Joyce point out, even if it doesn’t involve action movie heroics, dying is part of living.
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