DRAMA; 1hr 47min
STARRING: Julianne Moore, Tilda Swinton, John Turturro
Into the woods: from left, Swinton and Moore
Julianne Moore and Tilda Swinton could read the proverbial phone book — in Latin — and still be mesmerising. Who better to capture them, then, head-to-head in close-up, but femme-centric film-maker Pedro Almodóvar (Broken Embraces)? In his penetrative adaptation of Sigrid Nunez’s 2020 novel What Are You Going Through, the director is wisely content to bear witness while the lionesses do their empathic thing.
Old friends Ingrid (Moore) and Martha (Swinton) haven’t been in touch for years. They reunited when author Ingrid learns at a book signing that war correspondent Martha has cancer, and visits her in hospital. Martha’s cancer is stage-three cervical, a losing battle in which the ravages of chemotherapy have become the immediate enemy. Fiercely craving “a good death” on her own, uncompromising terms, Martha asks Ingrid to stay with her — that would be in the room next door — when she ends her life with medication. “Cancer can’t get me if I get me first,” she reasons, which nobody can deny.
Ingrid is as horrified by this crushing prospect as most vibrantly healthy people would be, but acquiesces because (a) she is a naturally caring person and (b) no one else is up to the task. The ever-decisive Martha promptly rents them a sculptural retreat in upstate New York for a month and off they go to do the chilling deed.
Plot-wise, that’s pretty much the size of it. Barring adroit support from Turturro as a key player in each woman’s life, the purpose and the power of their interior journey lies in the light and shade of its twin performances, with Martha’s resolve a potent foil for Ingrid’s boundless warmth. But it’s the third guest in the house that is poised to steal the show, the menace of its presence holding tight to all the cards.
