45/29
When Pedro Almodóvar sends Tilda Swinton the script, he asks her who should play Ingrid
Story
Ingrid and Marta were close friends in their youth, when they worked together at the same magazine. After years of not being in touch, they meet again in an extreme but strangely sweet situation…
They both had Julianne Moore in mind
Featured in The 7PM Project: Episode dated September 8, 2024 (2024). Successful writer "Ingrid" (Julianne Moore) is signing several books when one of her friends informs her that her old friend "Marta" (Tilda Swinton) is suffering from cancer.
After visiting her in the hospital, she discovers that things are not looking so good, and over the next few days the two begin to bond, sharing a trust and becoming quite interdependent
When an experimental treatment fails, former war reporter "Marta" makes a rather bold proposal to her friend that will require them to retreat to a quiet residence in Woodstock, where she will take matters into her own hands. Initially wary of the plan, "Ingrid" must decide whether or not she wants to help – with all the moral and legal implications that entails, and so she turns to the two women’s former boyfriend "Damian" (John Turturro) for advice as she wrestles with her conscience.
Too much of the dialogue between the two women seems more aimed at filling the audience in than building a connection between them
The concept here is indeed quite touching, especially in light of the revived conversation here in the UK about the rights of the terminally ill to make their own choices without fearing that those who abandon them will be persecuted either by the law or by zealots, but I can’t say I liked the presentation or the style. The things they should have known about each other are presented in a rather sterile way, and at times I wondered if there wasn’t enough dubbing.
Indeed, the whole thing deals with some serious emotional issues in a remarkably sterile way
Both actors give strong performances, but their dynamic isn’t compelling – well, it wasn’t for me, and the abundance of verbiage rather stifles the emotional impact the film could have made. Alex Høj Andersen takes off his Viking skins to briefly remind us of the horror of the Vietnam War, but otherwise it’s largely down to the two characters dealing with a scenario we all dread, just not terribly convincingly.
