24/50
Ingrid and Martha were close friends in their youth, when they worked together at the same magazine. After years of not speaking to each other, they meet again in an extreme but strangely sweet situation. When Pedro Almodóvar sent the script to Tilda Swinton, he asked who should play Ingrid. Both had Julianne Moore in mind. Featured in The 7PM Project: Episode dated September 8, 2024 (2024). It is almost unimaginable that there has been a more stylish, more elegant and more sophisticated film about death before this latest achievement by Pedro Almodóvar. The set design, the choice of colors and the costumes make this an almost too extravagant aesthetic pleasure to watch. My problem is that the film never finds the depth that should be necessary when dealing with such a serious and profound topic. Should one have the freedom and autonomy to decide for oneself whether it is time to end one’s life or not? Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore do their best to focus on this issue, portraying a close friendship facing its latest and most complex challenge yet. But the long dialogues felt stiff and too formulaic for my taste. I was stunned by the film’s visual richness, but it never really touched me emotionally, which is something I would expect from a great director like Almodóvar.