Julianne Moore and Tilda Swinton stunned the Venice Film Festival on Monday night with the premiere of Pedro Almodóvar's “The Room Next Door,” which received a 17-minute standing ovation, the longest of the 2024 edition so far.
After the film ended, the Spanish director kissed Swinton and Moore on the cheeks and raised their arms like boxing champions. He then descended the stairs with his new muses, extending the applause by shaking hands with fans in the theater. Swinton hugged Moore, who was wearing a shimmering gold gown, while Moore looked teary-eyed as Almodóvar, in a pink suit, reveled in the applause, as the audience chanted, “Pedro! Pedro! Pedro!”
Almodóvar appeared to wave to each of the fans in the Sala Grande theater during the enthusiastic applause. He clapped as Moore grabbed his arm. As the applause ended, at about the 14th minute, Almodóvar extended the applause by running down the stairs from the theater balcony to sign autographs and take selfies with fans. Moore and Swinton laughed as they tried to decide when they should try to escape the theater.
The applause for “The Room Next Door” has so far outstripped the huge standing ovations for other films at the festival: Brady Corbett’s “The Savage” (12 minutes), Pablo Larraín’s “Maria” (eight minutes), starring Angelina Jolie as the famous opera singer Maria Callas, and Justin Kurzel’s “The Order” (seven minutes), an 1980s crime thriller starring Jude Law.
The film, Almodóvar’s first English-language feature, premiered on a Venice night when the sweltering heatwave that has marked this year’s festivities had been suspended for a few hours. Moore and Swinton held hands in a light rain on the red carpet, posing for pictures as photographers called out their names.
“The Room Next Door” stars Oscar winners Ingrid (Moore) and Martha (Swinton), friends who worked at the same magazine early in their careers. Ingrid, now a best-selling novelist, reconnects with Martha as she deals with the late stages of cancer. The film shows the ups and downs that characterize Almodóvar’s work, even in a new city (although the brightly colored, perfectly lit apartments of these two women look as if they live in Madrid, not Manhattan).
Moore has been a fixture at the Venice Film Festival over the years, having previously attended Robert Altman’s “Short Cuts” in 1993, which won the festival’s best ensemble award; Todd Hayne’s “Far From Heaven” in 2002, for which she won Venice’s best actress award; fashion designer Tom Ford’s directorial debut “A Single Man” in 2009; and George Clooney’s “Suburbicon” in 2017; and is jury president in 2022.
Swinton also won the Best Actress award at Venice in 1991 for her performance in Edward II. She attended the festival alongside Moore in 2009, when Luca Guadagnino's romantic drama I Am Love was screened. In 2020, Swinton received the festival's Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement.
The Room Next Door is Almodóvar's follow-up to his 2021 film Parallel Mothers , which also premiered in Venice and won the festival's Volpi Cup for Best Actress for Penélope Cruz's performance. Almodóvar's previous projects that premiered in Venice also include 1983's Dark Habits ; 1988's Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown , which won Best Screenplay ; and his 2020 short film The Human Voice starring Swinton. He received the festival's Lifetime Achievement Award in 2019.
Following its Venice premiere, “The Room Next Door” is set to open in theaters on December 20 from Sony Pictures Classics.
