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‘The Room Next Door’ Tops Venice Film Festival, Nicole Kidman Wins Top Acting Honor

Spanish director and screenwriter Pedro Almodóvar holds the Golden Lion award for his movie "The Room Next Door" during the closing ceremony of the 81st annual Venice International Film Festival, in Venice, Italy, 07 September 2024. (EPA)
Spanish director and screenwriter Pedro Almodóvar holds the Golden Lion award for his movie "The Room Next Door" during the closing ceremony of the 81st annual Venice International Film Festival, in Venice, Italy, 07 September 2024. (EPA)
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‘The Room Next Door’ Tops Venice Film Festival, Nicole Kidman Wins Top Acting Honor

Spanish director and screenwriter Pedro Almodóvar holds the Golden Lion award for his movie "The Room Next Door" during the closing ceremony of the 81st annual Venice International Film Festival, in Venice, Italy, 07 September 2024. (EPA)
Spanish director and screenwriter Pedro Almodóvar holds the Golden Lion award for his movie "The Room Next Door" during the closing ceremony of the 81st annual Venice International Film Festival, in Venice, Italy, 07 September 2024. (EPA)

“The Room Next Door,” Pedro Almodóvar’s English-language debut starring Julianne Moore and Tilda Swinton, topped the Venice Film Festival and was awarded its Golden Lion award Saturday.

Nicole Kidman was awarded the best actress prize, for her raw and exposing portrayal of a CEO embroiled in an affair with an intern in “Babygirl,” but missed the ceremony due to the death of her mother.

“I arrived in Venice and found out shortly after that my beautiful, brave mother, Janelle Ann Kidman has just passed,” Kidman said in a statement read by “Babygirl” director Halina Reijn. “I'm in shock and I have to go to my family, but this award is for her. ... She shaped me and made me."

The 81st edition of the festival came to a close Saturday, with the Isabelle Huppert-led jury bestowing top prizes to Brady Corbet, for directing the 215-minute post-war epic “The Brutalist” and Vincent Lindon, for his lead performance in “The Quiet Son.” Lindon plays a single father whose son is radicalized by the far right.

Maura Delpero’s “Vermiglio” won the Silver Lion award, the runner up prize. The Italian-French-Belgian drama is about the last year of World War II, in which a refugee soldier happens upon a large family.

Almodóvar's win came after his film, a meditation on friendship and death, received a nearly 20-minute standing ovation. The Spanish filmmaker is a Venice favorite, having premiered many of his films at the festival over the past four decades.

“I would like to dedicate it to my family,” Almodóvar said. “This movie ... it is my first movie in English but the spirit is Spanish.”

Corbert, whose “The Brutalist” is about an architect and a Holocaust survivor rebuilding a life in America, came armed with a written statement to read at the ceremony — something his filmmaker wife had encouraged him to do.

“This is all very overwhelming. ... Brevity has never been my strong suit,” Corbet said. “Thank you for not holding its length against me.”

The Venice Film Festival used its closing film slot to host the world premiere of Kevin Costner’s “Horizon: An American Saga — Chapter 2.” The film played out of competition.

Many of the 21 competition titles were divisive, with passionate supporters and detractors.

“I have good news for you,” Huppert said at the ceremony. “Cinema is in great shape.”

Among the highest profile of the films of the festival in competition were: Todd Phillips’ “Joker: Folie à Deux,” the not-a-musical-musical with Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga and Pablo Larraín’s Maria Callas film “Maria,” starring Angelina Jolie as the famed soprano.

Five years ago, the Venice jury surprised the film world by giving the Golden Lion to “Joker,” which went on to win a best actor Oscar for Phoenix. Last year the top award went to “Poor Things” and the year before, the documentary “All the Beauty and the Bloodshed.”

The Luigi De Laurentiis award for a debut film went to Sarah Friedland’s “Familiar Touch,” about an octogenarian’s transition to life in assisted living as she grapples with her age, her memory and her relationship to her caregivers. Friedland also won the director prize in the horizons section and her star, Kathleen Chalfant, won the actress prize.

Though always a player in the international festival scene, Venice has cemented its reputation as a major launching pad for awards campaigns over the past 12 years. Since 2014, they’ve hosted four best picture winners (“Birdman,” “Spotlight,” “The Shape of Water” and “Nomadland”) and 19 nominees. And buzz is already swirling about possible best actress nominations for Kidman and Jolie, and supporting actress for Gaga, as the fall film season kicks into full gear.

The festival this year marked a return to form with true A-listers back on the Lido to celebrate films both in and out of competition after last year’s strike addled outing. In addition to the names above, George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Michael Keaton, Winona Ryder, Ethan Hawke, Sigourney Weaver were all lending their star power to the event.

And many rose to the occasion with their fashion. Gaga’s Christian Dior gown paired with a vintage lace Philip Treacy headpiece made for a major red-carpet moment. As was Kidman’s body-hugging Schiaparelli, Blanchett’s Armani Privé with strands of pearls cascading down her back, and Jolie with her fur stole.

Rachel Weisz and Daniel Craig also played the power couple, with her in a glittery blue Versace gown and him in a cream Loewe suit. The “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” cast did also did a spin on the movie’s aesthetic with their wares.

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Movie Review: Bring Your Global Entry Card — ‘Beetlejuice’ Sequel’s a Soul Train Ride to Comedy Joy 

US actor Michael Keaton arrives for the UK premiere of "Beetlejuice Beetlejuice" at the Cineworld Leicester Square in London, Britain, 29 August 2024. (EPA)
US actor Michael Keaton arrives for the UK premiere of "Beetlejuice Beetlejuice" at the Cineworld Leicester Square in London, Britain, 29 August 2024. (EPA)
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Movie Review: Bring Your Global Entry Card — ‘Beetlejuice’ Sequel’s a Soul Train Ride to Comedy Joy 

US actor Michael Keaton arrives for the UK premiere of "Beetlejuice Beetlejuice" at the Cineworld Leicester Square in London, Britain, 29 August 2024. (EPA)
US actor Michael Keaton arrives for the UK premiere of "Beetlejuice Beetlejuice" at the Cineworld Leicester Square in London, Britain, 29 August 2024. (EPA)

“I have global entry!”

Now, does that sound like a funny line? Of course it doesn’t. Whatever in the history of mankind and airport lines could be funny about global entry?

But put it in the mouth of comedy goddess Catherine O’Hara, and place it in the singularly inventive world of Tim Burton and that wacky afterlife waiting room from “Beetlejuice,” and it may become the one blessed time in your life you'll ever guffaw about global entry.

It likely won't be the only thing you'll guffaw about. Burton is back — and, more significantly, he is BACK — with “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” 36 years after the original. And for once, the question “Why a sequel?” is moot.

Not because we know the answer. (Do we?) But, who cares? It’s funny. It may even make you feel better about, well, death, though not “death death.” And Michael Keaton somehow looks exactly the same as he did in 1988 (to be fair, it helps that his character was already dead.)

Returning to his tale of Keaton's ghostly, fiendish “bio-exorcist,” director Burton brings back much of the team behind the original, including, alongside O’Hara and Keaton, the still-lovely Winona Ryder as Lydia the Goth Girl (also, Bob the shrunken-head guy).

And we've gained Justin Theroux, Monica Bellucci, Willem Dafoe, and for the younger generation, Jenna Ortega, who, as a relatively normal figure, serves as an appealing anchor, her story moving the plot along.

Speaking of plot: if you didn’t see the original, not to worry. It all gets explained (as much as it should be) in time. We begin in Winter River, Connecticut, still home to Lydia Deetz (Ryder), who came as a teenager with batty stepmom Delia and dad Charles, only to learn her new house was haunted by the recently deceased Adam and Barbara (Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis, alas not back).

Lydia looks much the same — dressed all in black, with spiky bangs and pale skin — but is now a widowed mother, a psychic mediator, and host of a cheesy reality show, “Ghost House,” in which she sees ghosts and asks, “Can the living and the dead co-exist?”

But one day she sees something in the audience that scares her: visions of Beetlejuice, who wrought havoc when she was a teen and who, when we last left him, was wasting away in the afterlife waiting room (apparently, HE did not have global entry.)

Waiting just off set to comfort Lydia after this terrifying vision is her manager and boyfriend, Rory (Theroux), who has a little ponytail almost as smarmy as himself.

Lydia then gets a concerning message from Delia (O’Hara), an artist of questionable talent and unquestionable ego, who’s mounting a gallery show in which she herself is the canvas. There, Delia tells Lydia that she’s lost Charles. “Is he divorcing you?” gasps Lydia. “What a horrible thought!” replies Delia. “No, he’s dead.” (Such lines are catnip for O’Hara, a genius of comic timing).

Lydia calls her daughter, Astrid (Ortega), at boarding school. Astrid lists Lydia in her contacts as “Alleged Mom,” which tells you much of what you need to know about their fraught relationship.

But let’s pause this account of the living, because we also have to catch you up on the dead. Down where Beetlejuice is stuck, where the dead live — but not the “dead dead” —- Delores, Beetlejuice’s ex-wife, has escaped from the crates (emphasis on plural) in which her body has resided. Watching the glamorous Bellucci literally staple herself together is just one of the glorious creative moments Burton and crew give us here. Alas, Delores doesn't have much else to do, but this is rather spectacular.

We're approaching spoiler territory, so let’s just say that things really get complicated when Astrid goes home to Winter River for her father’s funeral. There, she watches as Mom accepts a marriage proposal from smarmy Rory. Racing off to escape, Astrid runs into a cute young guy reading Dostoyevsky.

A relationship begins, one that will lead to unexpected mayhem. Let’s just say Lydia will need to call upon — gasp! — Beetlejuice, who will exact a fearsome price for his services, as he is wont to do.

And he appears none too soon. Keaton, in his white caked makeup and blackened eyes and hair that looks like he is perpetually sticking his hand into a plug in the wall, slips remarkably smoothly into his old role. “The juice is loose,” as he likes to say.

But you know who’s also got the juice flowing? Burton. It’s his inimitable energy that infuses this movie — a joyously rendered sequel that sometimes makes sense, and sometimes doesn’t, but just keeps rollicking. Among the ridiculous delights along the way: A “soul train” in the afterlife, which is not only literally a train of souls, but a replica of the variety show “Soul Train,” with people in Afros dancing their way to wherever they are going.

And if we don't have the lip-synced “Day-O (The Banana Boat Song)” from the original, we do have a lip-synced “MacArthur Park,” the Donna Summer version. “Someone left the cake out in the rain,” go the ridiculous words of the disco classic. “I don’t think that I can take it, ’cause it took so long to bake it, and I’ll never have that recipe again.”

In the Burtonian spirit, let's just say it took a long time to bake it, yes, but the director has recovered the recipe — at least enough to make us smile, chortle, even guffaw, for 104 minutes. And we can be happy with that.