There is a perplexing relationship between the afterlife and meaning. For a considerable duration of time, many people found the idea of life after death or damnation for bad acts and heaven for good actions profoundly meaningful. Moreover, since an overwhelming majority of individuals across all ages have historically and presently lived in extremely difficult and painful conditions; this made it comforting that they could give up worldly afflictions to enjoy heavenly rewards. Still more, fear for death could be calmed by thought of some form of eternal life.
Next Exit allows us to see what it would mean if there were any reality to life after death beyond its being a prayerful hope, as Elfman’s film suggests – why wait out a miserable life now when there is definitely another one? Why shouldn’t you move on, cross over, simply die? This film takes place in a world where there is some scientific proof that there exists life outside earth hence suicide levels have risen sharply due to feeling meaningless.
In this particular case, the scientist (played by Karen Gillan) runs an institute similar to Kevorkian’s where medical professionals help suicides take their lives so they can study and document the moment they cross into the next world. They are attached at hip during Rose and Teddy’s long ride to the facility as volunteers in this deadly experiment (performed with brilliance by Katie Parker and Rahul Kohli).
However simple Next Exit may be considered, it is also surprisingly hard to describe. On one hand Next Exit is amalgamation of buddy comedy with American road trip movies while injecting dystopian science fiction into emotionally powerful family drama with supernatural-tinged horror elements resulting in something impossible to easily pigeonhole. However good that might seem like, it could be detrimental because it might not attract viewership which might be inappropriate.
She was cynical and had a somewhat cruel demeanour but Rose was also deeply complex. It is like she has “I am through” written on her shirt. She sells a cheap television to someone in the opening scene; after he makes a pass at her, she throws his TV down the stairs and walks out through a fire escape with his money. She is caught in a self-loathing rut that will seem familiar to some—every time she allows for vulnerability, she then makes choices she regrets later feels guilty about it, becomes self-destructive and builds even higher walls so that he is even more unapproachable than before.
Teddy is quite the bubbly charmer who hides behind comedy and repression. He’s funny; cute, kind of annoying but has this unnatural feel like somebody put an old band aid over him and now its peeling off at times revealing an angry wounded little boy inside him. However, Rose’s own antagonism eventually grinds Teddy down until the point where they take care of each other throughout their bleak gray ride into death itself.
Considering Next Exit is a road movie where most of the time it’s trapped in a car, it’s lucky that some of Rose and Teddy’s simple conversations are among the film’s highlights. Part of this has to do with Elfman’s dialogue, which is smart but in an everyday way. Furthermore, Parker and Kohli have great chemistry.
While Parker and Kohli don’t exactly have ‘types,’ they’re certainly playing against their most famous roles in different Mike Flanagan series (The Haunting of Hill House, Midnight Mass, The Haunting of Bly Manor). She has actually produced several other films for Flanagan too, and there is a sense of community amongst them all in Next Exit. There is comfort on and off screen.
Apart from extended sequences of speech making, each stop they make along the way reveals something about themselves or reflects some major theme. These are often deeply touching too as well as revealing more about how bleak Next Exit’s world can be or how hopeless Rose and Teddy (and everyone else) are. There are few standouts including the one where a drunk man gets violent after thinking about those he killed during his time as a soldier overseas while playing drinking games at the bar. If there really were such things as ghosts then what would happen to all the people we’ve hurt? All those we ignored? Maybe that explains why ghost stories can be so viscerally terrifying.
Another standout is when Rose and Teddy hit a man with their rental car; he had walked out into the road wearing an apologetic sign, one of the many people in Next Exit who want to die but are too afraid (or religious) to pass by suicide. A pastor helps them on the side of the road, and this provides an intellectually gratifying theological moment for the movie In fact much of next exit will keep you thinking philosophically as well spiritually making you feel complex questions asking about empathy which isn’t always easy.
Films about suicide might seem morbid, but they’re often amazing; there’s something inherently suspenseful and emotionally powerful about getting to know someone at the very end and discovering why (or if) they’ll take their own life. A Taste of Cherry, Leaving Las Vegas, Wristcutters, and On the Count of Three are all truly wonderful films, and Next Exit joins their ranks, but with a bit less bleakness than watching Nicolas Cage drink himself to death.
In fact, it’s an often funny movie, with the humor coming organically from the characters. It is also sometimes spooky in keeping with its mishmash of genres. Going one further; it can also be heartbreaking in some instances having certifiably tear jerking moments; while slightly rushed towards the end it does leave quite an impact. Most of this works largely because everyone (including a short stint by Rose McIver who had already been with Kohli on iZombie) is fully committed to Elfman’s very particular mood that she uses as her guide through dark spaces into some kind of peace.
In spite of the fact that suicide is a dominant theme and these characters are on a march to death, this film gives some hope in the end. The movie does not offer any definitive spiritual or moral solutions to the problem, but it shows that one can restore meaning to meaninglessness even if it is for a short while. However, Next Exit is really more about life than death itself and what life holds regardless of whether there are any afterlives.
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