The director who made Julianne Moore feel seen: “He really honours the female experience”
Julienne Moore has had an eclectic and dazzling career, with many peculiar and individualistic projects that have shaped an irreplaceable career. From the suffocating exploration of womanhood and suburban oppression in Safe, to the devastating melodrama of May December and ensemble work on the likes of Magnolia and Short Cuts, Moore has dipped her toes into every single genre through her work with some of the best directors today. However, despite starring in many complex stories about the female experience, the actor has highlighted that the director has truly captured this in his stories.
Pedro Almodóvar has a vibrant and colourful slate of films, with interweaving narratives that often focus on female characters and their exploration of love, identity and family. Through films like All About My Mother, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown and The Room Next Door, the director shows a knack for understanding the inner world of women and the strength of female friendship, something that very few male directors have been able to capture.
In his most recent film, The Room Next Door, Almodóvar has been praised for bringing Tilda Swinton and Moore together in a complex story about two women who were once close friends when working at a magazine. Later, they cross paths again in an unlikely way and share what has happened in their lives since.
Moore, of course, has played many-layered and unconventional female characters over the years, but after working with Almodóvar, she described the transformative quality of his stories, saying, “It’s wonderful. He really honours the female experience,” said Moore. “I think it’s something that he talks about, sitting under the kitchen table when his mother was talking to her friends and absorbing those stories and how powerful they were, and understanding that point of view. I think he’s always in that feminine point of view. Like I said, he honours that world. You feel very, very seen as an actor when you work with Pedro.”
There are very few directors who are able to truly empathise with women and articulate their perspectives, with people like Christopher Nolan and Martin Scorsese being criticised for their portrayal of women, with two-dimensional and stereotypical female characters that are relegated to the category of being a wife or an object of desire.
It’s incredibly disappointing when some of the greatest creative minds cannot fathom a woman with thoughts that match their own, but alas, this is the state of our current cinematic climate and has been this way for many years.
But in a world of Nolan’s and Tarantino’s, it is refreshing to see stories like the ones created by Almodóvar in which he shows respect and reverence towards the innate wisdom of women and the challenges of their experiences. While many directors refuse to see the inner world of women as a valid viewpoint, we could do with more people like Almodóvar who challenge this notion and create rich and layered stories that do justice to the women all around us.
