In his mid ’70s, it’s only natural that the great Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar should turn his attentions to reflecting on lives lived, and questions of how one wants life to end with his latest film.

But in boiling down and adapting the Sigrid Nunez novel “What Are You Going Through” into “The Room Next Door,” Almodóvar has conjured up the blithe, arid banalities of Woody Allen at his most pretentious. He squanders two Oscar winners and an Emmy winner in a drab, lifeless story in which characters recite passages from poetry and James Joyce from memory and watch Buster Keaton’s silent classic “Seven Chances” as they ponder a planned suicide and melodramatic strings drone on in the score.

All that’s missing are a few mentions of “Mahler”and you’d have yourself a companion piece to any one of a dozen later Allen films, the ones without a laugh or a light moment to recommend them.

Julianne Moore plays Ingrid, a busy, best-selling author of “fictionalized” biographies and non-fiction who learns of an old friend’s cancerous decline from a mutual acquaintance who comes to a book signing.

Martha (Tilda Swinton) was once a combat correspondant. Now she’s in a New York hospital, longing to go home. As booked-up Ingrid — not a “close” friend — sets aside bigger and bigger chunks of her days to take Martha’s calls and visit her once she comes home to her roomy Manhattan flat to recover from her latest treatment, they reminisce over their careers — especially Martha’s.

They talk about “New York in the ’80s,” Martha’s daughter, flashing back to the troubled Vietnam vet father the child never knew and joke about a “shared lover,” and chuckle as they compare “enthusiastic” notes.

Martha also lets on as to how she’s prepped herself for “the end,” and how her “experimental treatment…survival feels almost disappointing.”

When things take a turn, Ingrid is who Martha confides in. She figures that her life of fame won through risk in war zones means “I deserve a good death.” Ingrid’s involvement drifts towards “the ask.” Martha wants to take a “suicide pill.” She wants to do it in Woodstock, in a posher-than-posh AirBnB. And she wants Ingrid in “The Room Next Door” when she does it — for companionship, and for dealing with the legal complexity of what comes after.

Whatever life there was in the Nunez novel seems bleached out of this meandering, claustrophobic melodrama that that Ingrid finds herself trapped in. That “shared lover” (John Turturro) is still in her life, a friend she can confide in and get advice from.

But this extraordinary situation barely takes on the gravitas demanded. Some anecdotes do nothing to illuminate character or this predicament. And the comic possibilities — this is like asking a casual acquaintance of long standing to oh, babysit, dogsit, help you move, co-sign a loan or the like.

Why didn’t Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld ever get around to assisted suicide as an “inconvenience?”

Moore is too good an actress to not let us feel the gut-punch of this turn of events. Swinton, who takes on a cadaverous in the later acts, easily fits our mental picture of a famous female war reporter — flinty, a little butch, blunt about her success and her failings and pragmatic about her goals.

Ingrid’s last goal is to die with dignity, with a writer she trusts perhaps taking an interest in her journals and by extension, her life story. That’s cynical, but letting Ingrid (and the viewer) figure that out had all sorts of dramatic possibilities.

It’s all perfectly high-minded and polished, but all of this could have been treated with more spark than comes across here. The epilogue that comes after a disappointing third act feels like both a stunt and one last let down that a legendary filmmaker delivers in adapting a novel he was either too serious about, or that he didn’t take seriously enough.

Rating: PG-13, suicide, profanity

Cast: Julianne Moore, Tilda Swinton, Alessandro Nivola and John Turturro

Credits: Scripted and directed by Pedro Almodóvar, based on a novel by Sigrid Nunez. A Sony Pictures Classics release.

Running time: 1:43

It was an improbable place. An artist collective known as JJU, or John Joyce University, hidden in the foothills of Altadena, resembled a 1960s fever dream of communal living. That such a community could exist in modern Los Angeles was a miracle to those residing there, until — in a single harrowing night — the Eaton fire swallowed it whole.

If you haven’t heard of it, that’s because it wasn’t actually a university. It was a compound of two neighboring properties — mansions, bungalows and converted garages — affectionately named after the 77-year-old carpenter who resided there for 26 years. He was the guy you went to if you wanted to borrow a book, had a maintenance issue or just wanted to talk philosophy. About 30 artists lived and worked together, sharing art studios, supplies, the tools of their various crafts and how-to knowledge.

Joyce saw all kinds of artists come and go over the years; composers, sculptors, painters, performance artists, poets and art professors.

“We also raised amazing kids,” he said, noting the many families who came through.

Joyce uses the word “we” liberally when talking about JJU, because the compound was all about the benefits of togetherness. He shared videos and photos of community dinners in the grand dining room and of walls covered with art from those who had once lived there. A number of clips featured artists working in various areas of the house while a performance artist named Michelle Garduno danced or napped with a CPR doll. Everybody, Joyce said, donated a piece of art to the community upon leaving.

“The whole notion of individualism is a complete fraud,” Joyce said. “We had common areas where people could do whatever they wanted. We had a photo studio set up. We had painting studios going on. We had shows in there. We used it for everything. Even the yard — there were lots of big sloppy paintings in the yard.”

The main house had a lending library filled with art books and catalogs, and people from the surrounding community came for annual parties. The diversity of the neighborhood — a melting pot from around the world — was also part of the area’s cosmic draw.

“There were working-class people next to JPL [Jet Propulsion Laboratory] people, next to Caltech people, next to Hollywood people,” Joyce said. “Everybody got along.”

Painter Susannah Mills, who for the last decade lived in a converted garage at JJU, said that one mansion on the compound was built in 1890 by a French artist and later became an orphanage run by Catholic nuns. Its current owner, Jeff Ricks, bought it more than 30 years ago and began populating it with artists, including Joyce, who also managed the property.

Mills said that when she first arrived at the compound, Joyce helped her get set up. He made sure she had the art supplies and furniture she needed.

“From that point forward, I knew I had just found this misfit community,” Mills said. “That’s what we were like. Many of us were people without families. We all had dogs and cats, and we were all artists. I never worried about anything. I always felt safe there. We all just loved each other.”

The community built an exhibition area called the Narrow Gallery in one of the houses, and that’s where Mills staged her first show. Her rent was less than $1,000 per month; Ricks never raised it. The low living expenses gave her the freedom to work as an end-of-life guide; she also worked at the Altadena Community Church, an inclusive, social-justice-oriented congregation where she helped book events for community organizations. (The church also was destroyed in the Eaton fire.)

Residents of JJU were friendly with the people living at Zorthian Ranch, another nearby collective also lost to fire. The 48-acre artists colony was on land that muralist Jirayr Zorthian bought in the 1940s, turning it into a sprawling outpost for his family and eventually a summer arts camp for children. Zorthian ran in bohemian circles and threw parties that attracted Andy Warhol, Charlie Parker and Bob Dylan.

A figure-drawing class at Zorthian Ranch in Altadena.

(Hannah Ray Taylor)

For as long as she’s lived in Altadena, Mills said, Zorthian has served as a community hub. It hosted donation-based figure-drawing and mosaic classes, as well as workshops on how to shear sheep and spin wool. Zorthian’s granddaughter, Julia, lived at the ranch, along with about more than a dozen docents and artists, and she said the community thrived in the ordered lawlessness of the unincorporated area.

“Because Los Angeles is such a regulated city, it can be really hard to just exist as an artist,” she said. “So being able to live in a space where somebody is allowing for flexibility outside of these harsh rules and regulations gave people room to flourish.”

The utopian sense of self-determination flagged a bit after the fire, when everyone in the community scattered to the wind, but Joyce cited a great desire to rebuild. Text chains are flourishing, and an idea is fermenting about using shipping containers as living quarters.

Joyce was the last JJU resident on the property early Jan. 8, when a house across the street literally exploded from what he thinks may have been a gas leak. An ember from that fire raced on the wind and lodged into a 50-foot palm tree by the main JJU house. Gales whipped the fronds into a frenzy, causing the tree to spray embers like a sprinkler. The world around Joyce erupted in flames. Even the gravel looked like it was burning.

Joyce was holding a garden hose.

“I never felt so weak in my whole life,” Joyce recalled. “Those flames, and the sound. … It was a huge, powerful, angry animal.”

Joining this list is director Sreeraj Sreenivasan’s film, Pravinkoodu Shappu (Pravinkoodu toddy shop), starring Basil Joseph, Soubin Shahir and Chandini Sreedharan. Set in Thrissur, the movie revolves around a small toddy shop and a murder that occurs there.

What’s it about?

One night, as rain beats down relentlessly, a group of men, including the wealthy and goonish toddy shop owner ‘Komban’ Babu and the toddy shop worker Kannan (Soubin Shahir), sit inside the toddy shop busy playing cards once the regular customers go home. Suddenly, one of the men finds Babu hanging from the ceiling and mayhem ensues. Former military man Sunil takes charge of the situation in the shop. As they wait for the police to arrive, the group of men start discussing what could have happened to Babu.

They ascertain that it’s murder. Sunil announces that one of them could be the culprit and prevents anyone from leaving the shop. Police inspector Santhosh (Basil Jodeph) lands up at the toddy shop with his team and it’s now up to him to investigate and find the murderer in 10 days. What happens next and who is responsible for the murder of Sunil forms the rest of the story.

The director uses the first half of the film to narrate the backstories of some of the main characters like Babu, real estate agent Sunil and worker Kannan using Santhosh and his investigative technique as the catalyst. As Santhosh questions each of the men present on that night, the audience discovers that Babu was a thug and his unpopularity in the village was based on numerous incidents. Sreeraj Sreenivasan gives us insight into not only each of the men in the toddy shop, but also into Kannan’s wife, Merinda (Chandini Sreedharan) and eccentric Santhosh as well, who seems to have a troubled past.

Should you watch it?

The first half of the movie proceeds really slowly and does test your patience, but the scenes are made more engaging by the antics of the characters and their witty remarks and dark humour. If you think it’s going to be a straightforward murder mystery, the director, using a non-linear approach, suddenly throws a curveball as the second half proceeds. As Basil Joseph digs deeper into this murder, there are more red herrings and the climax ends up being convoluted, thanks to the loose threads and many subplots (for instance, the stories of some characters were unnecessary and didn’t add too much value; and the suspicious behaviour of some of them to throw us off track). Thus, the climax felt a little underwhelming.

Director Sreeraj Sreenivasan, who has also written the story, has tried to give us a dark comic murder mystery in which every character infuses humour into the story through dialogues and/or their behaviour. However, the story itself and how it is narrated is a tad flawed, which at times is quite frustrating. The whodunnit is held together and engages you, thanks largely to the talented Basil Joseph who, with his sharp dialogue delivery and innocent yet comical expressions, elicits laughs as well as appreciation. He effortlessly carries the film on his shoulders. Soubin Shahir and Chandini Sreedharan are great value additions with their performances.

On the whole, Pravinkoodu Shappu has good performances and is a decent watch, but for a whodunit, just lacks the big punch one expects.