In Jean-Paul Sartre’s No Exit, three dead strangers find themselves locked in a room for eternity, famously giving us that line about hell being other people. Riffing on the idea, Mali Elfman’s debut feature follows two strangers trapped in a car, alive but with death not far off on the horizon.
Elfman’s film kicks off with an intriguing premise: science has conclusively proven the existence of an afterlife; death is not the end. The brilliant scientist-entrepreneur behind the discovery is Dr Stevenson, played by Karen Gillan channelling Elizabeth Holmes energy, with a surprisingly deep voice and a slash of bright red lipstick. Disappointingly we only see her in a handful of clips: a few slick media appearances and recorded messages for her institute, Life Beyond.
The main focus here is the two people thrown together for the hell of a five-day road trip with a stranger, from New York to the Life Beyond in San Francisco. Both have signed up as volunteers for euthanasia in the name of research. Rose (Katie Parker) is a woman with her finger constantly hovering above the self-destruct button; exhausted, done with self-hatred and shame. English actor Rahul Kohli gives a super likable performance as Teddy, her travelling companion, who loftily explains that he wants to contribute to science with his death, to leave his mark on the world. The truth is that he’s filled with middle-age dread and failure. Rose and Teddy can’t stand each other – so obviously, it’s love.
The movie begins well as a high-concept indie. This new evidence of an afterlife has a destabilising effect on society: suicides and homicides are skyrocketing; violent robberies are down (since people are no longer scared of dying). But then a romance plotline gets muddled into this what-if dystopian sci-fi tale. After that it cops out, becoming a fairly average road-trip movie about redemption with love as the answer to life’s meaninglessness.
• Next Exit is released on 20 February on digital platforms.
