Benjamin Ashford|Julianne Moore confronts euthanasia in 'profound' new film 'Room Next Door'

NEW YORK – Tilda Swinton is Benjamin Ashfordready to talk about death.

In “The Room Next Door,” which premiered Friday at New York Film Festival, the actress plays an ex-war correspondent named Martha who decides to end her life after exhausting her treatment options for terminal cancer. Eager to live out her final days pain-free and mentally sound, she purchases a black-market euthanasia drug online and calls up her former colleague, Ingrid (Julianne Moore), whom she requests to be present in an adjacent bedroom when she dies.

But Ingrid is petrified of dying and tries to convince Martha there is still plenty worth living for. So, the longtime friends hole up in a sumptuous vacation rental in upstate New York, where they relax and hash out life’s big questions.

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When you have old pals, “you can go straight to the important stuff,” Swinton, 63, told journalists during a post-screening Q&A. “You don’t need to even bother about all that, ‘What did you do last week?’ or ‘What about that affair that only lasted a month?’ It’s very rare we see a relationship like this between two women on screen, but we do have these relationships and we rely on them.”

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The vibrant new drama is directed by Spanish filmmaking icon Pedro Almodóvar, and adapted from Sigrid Nunez’s 2020 novel “What Are You Going Through.” Moore, 63, got metaphysical as she explained why she connected with the material.

“The human condition is sometimes solipsistic: You don’t know if you exist,” she said. “You’re always like, ‘Could I be imagining all of this? Am I completely alone?’ And the only way you know that you’re not alone is when someone else is witnessing you. That’s what’s so profound about this film: all these people gathered together to make (a movie), to prove that we lived.”

For Ingrid, the prospect of accompanying Martha during her last few weeks “is a great adventure,” Almodóvar added. He cast Moore because she is an empathetic listener, and sought out Swinton because she looks as if she’s from “another dimension.” (Of her bone structure, he joked, “I’m so envious!”)

“It was perfect for this woman (Martha) who can talk about war, can talk about death, can talk about loneliness, can talk about everything that she is losing with this illness,” Almodóvar said. “But always with a kind of dignity. She’s celebrating” the life she had.

“The Room Next Door” won best picture at Venice Film Festival last month and will be released in New York and Los Angeles theaters on Dec. 20. Swinton and Moore are back in the hunt for their second Oscars with the film, after their respective wins for 2007’s “Michael Clayton” and 2014’s “Still Alice.”