Composer Alberto Iglesias is the secret ingredient of Pedro Almodóvar’s new picture, “The Room Next Door.” Mr. Iglesias has worked for the Spanish filmmaker on numerous occasions, including signature Almodóvar films such as “All About My Mother” (1999) and “Talk To Her” (2002), as well as on films by Oliver Stone, Steven Soderbergh, and Ridley Scott. Mr. Iglesias has won a number of international awards but has yet to cull an Oscar — notwithstanding having been nominated for Best Original Score four times over. 

Will Mr. Iglesias clinch the elusive gold figurine for Mr. Almodóvar’s latest venture? Given how regularly the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences drops the ball, I’d hesitate to place a bet on it. Besides, the music Mr. Iglesias has contrived for “The Room Next Door” is peculiar. The soundtrack is simultaneously sneaking and omnipresent, unapologetically lush and even a tad saccharine. It recalls the overripe sonorities of a 1950s melodrama, albeit done with a softly stated nod-and-wink.

That is perfect for a film that roots itself in both the limitations of the mortal coil and the excesses of material pleasure. Mr. Almodóvar has long been one of our great sensualists: “The Room Next Door” is no exception. The palette of the picture is deftly calibrated and deliberately choreographed — complementary colors, usually sharp in saturation, predominate. Textures, too, particularly as they pertain to human flesh. Cinematographer Eduard Grau underscores pallor, tactility, and tone with a bracing forthrightness.

It helps that Mr. Almodóvar has a fondness for close-ups. With our main protagonists portrayed by Julianne Moore and Tilda Swinton, how could he resist? Each actress cuts a distinctive figure, being unafraid of the camera’s sometimes unforgiving embrace and emboldened by Mr. Almodóvar’s knack for crafting indelible female characters. Ms. Swinton has never been quite as angular nor Ms. Moore as approachable. They play friends who haven’t seen each other in a dog’s age. The reunion is unexpected, attenuated, and fraught with consequence.

Ms. Tildon is Martha, a one-time war correspondent who has been diagnosed with stage 3 cervical cancer. Ms. Moore is Ingrid, an author of best-selling books, the most recent of which concerns death and dying. Ingrid hears of Martha’s illness from a mutual friend who has lined up for the author’s autograph at a public event at Manhattan’s Rizzoli Bookstore. New Yorkers can take it as a badge of honor that Mr. Almodóvar’s first English-language feature takes place in our fair city.  

Ingrid pops by to visit Martha at a local hospital and, after some tentative backing-and-forthing, their friendship picks up where it left off. Seeking solace, the pair head to a luxe Modernist Airbnb in a picturesque upstate locale. A lot of talk ensues — a lot of talk. Mr. Almodóvar’s screenplay is an adaptation of Sigrid Nunez’s novel “What Are You Going Through.” How much of the film’s literal, literate, and sometimes stilted chit-chat has been gleaned from its source material?

How does one achieve a sense of balance when it’s been upset by illness? Martha takes moderate pleasure in Buster Keaton and birdsong, but reading and food are becoming less rewarding. The results of her latest round of experimental chemotherapy have proved fruitless. Martha makes plans to end her disappointment and pain — a suicide that involves Ingrid’s tacit cooperation. Ingrid isn’t wild about the situation, but defers, reluctantly, to her friend’s prerogative. What, Mr. Almodóvar’s film asks, are the limits of friendship?

There are other characters afoot. John Turturro shows up as a global catastrophist who once bedded Martha and Ingrid; Alessandro Nivola is an upstate cop whose faith clouds his policing; and starring as Martha’s daughter Michelle is — well, let’s not spoil the film. On the whole, “The Room Next Door” belongs to Ms. Swinton and Ms. Moore, who acquit themselves as handsomely as you might imagine. As for Mr. Almodóvar: he’s among the most perspicacious observers of the human animal we have extant. His latest observations are as magisterial as they are down to earth, par for the course, and very welcome.