Ingrid and Martha were close once, back when they were up-and-coming writers at the same magazine in New York City. But their paths diverged: Martha traveled the globe as a war correspondent, while Ingrid found success as an author. The years passed and they lost touch.
That is, until a mutual friend bumps into Ingrid at one of her book signings. Amidst their small talk is a bombshell: Martha has cancer.
Shocked by this revelation, Ingrid visits her friend in the hospital. Martha is delighted to see her. Martha’s prognosis is not good: Her cancer is inoperable. Martha’s only hope of living lies in experimental treatments.
Ingrid regrets the time they lost and promises to be with Martha every step of her journey. Despite the difficult circumstances, the old friends quickly reconnect. Martha’s spirits are buoyed by Ingrid’s presence.
Then, Martha learns that her treatments have failed. Her cancer has metastasized. Even with her treatments, it’s now only a matter of time. She bemoans the false hope she allowed herself. Though Ingrid finds the prospect of death terrifying, she is steadfast in support of her friend. She’s happy to do whatever is needed to comfort Martha … or so she thinks.
Martha is tired of fighting. Now, she simply wants a “good death.” In her mind, that means leaving life behind before she deteriorates any further. And so, through some illicit means, she acquires a euthanasia pill.
She plans to take it to end her life. And she wants Ingrid to be there when she does.
Martha says she has “faced death many times” as a war correspondent but has always shared the journey with others. Everyone else that Martha is close with has refused her request. Ingrid is the only one left.
As you might imagine, this stirs up an incredible amount of conflict in Ingrid. Assisting Martha in her suicide would be gut-wrenching … not to mention illegal.
What’s a friend to do?
Though they have been out of touch for some time, Ingrid and Martha resume a close friendship after they reconnect. Ingrid faithfully walks alongside Martha during her sickness and takes care of her friend—providing a listening ear and a shoulder to cry on. Initially, she tries to talk Martha out of using the euthanasia pill. And she tries to help Martha’s daughter find some closure.
In a conversation with her friend Damian, Ingrid shares a hopeful message despite difficult circumstances, saying there are “lots of ways to live inside tragedy.” A man runs inside a burning building to save the people he thinks he hears crying out from inside. Friends refuse a request to assist in a suicide. An author is generous to her fans.
Martha scoffs at members of her cancer support group who consider their ailment an opportunity for spiritual growth. She tells Ingrid about her meeting with two Carmelites (members of a Catholic order—more on them below) who brought aid to the people of Baghdad during the Iraq War.
A policeman refers to himself as a “man of faith” and doggedly investigates a suicide. A lawyer calls the officer a “religious fanatic.”
Casual sex is a frequent topic of conversation in The Room Next Door. Martha believes that “sex is the best way to fend off looming thoughts of death” and says that her times in war-torn countries would make her promiscuous. She and Ingrid discuss a lover they both shared—a man who Martha refers to as “passionate and enthusiastic” in the bedroom.
That man, Damian, is still friends with Ingrid and tells her that he misses their sexual escapades (which included drinking and drugs) and how he used to feel that a day without sex was incomplete. He talks about how his relationship with Martha was mostly physical and describes intimacy with her as “like having sex with a terrorist—like it was the last time.”
We are told at least one of the Carmelite missionaries mentioned above engaged in a homosexual affair with another man. It’s speculated that the pair of missionaries are lovers as well. A man rationalizes that one of the missionaries chooses to do this as he “never renounced physical pleasure” (which clearly clashes with an orthodox understanding of Christian sexual ethics).
A flashback shows a young Martha kissing Fred, a man whom she was seeing before he was drafted to fight in Vietnam. After a scarred Fred returned from the war, he walks out on Martha, but not before the two have sex. (We see them kiss passionately and Fred removes his jacket, but the rest is implied.) Martha becomes pregnant from this encounter.
Ingrid and Martha discuss the lives of writer Lytton Strachey and artist Dora Carrington. Strachey was gay, so Carrington married the man he loved to solidify a threefold relationship. A young woman mentions that she has a girlfriend.
As noted, the plot here is built around Martha’s decision to end her life before her illness progresses. She tells Ingrid plainly, “The cancer can’t get me if I get me first.” A man dies trying to save people from a burning house. There is talk of a woman committing suicide by shooting herself in the stomach.
Martha does end up committing suicide by taking the euthanasia pill. We see her lifeless body lying on a recliner.
There are three uses of the f-word. Jesus’ name is abused once, and God’s name is taken in vain five times. We hear two uses of “h—” and one “bulls—.”
Martha acquires a euthanasia pill via the dark web. She jokingly says she will become a “junkie” due to the pain meds she must take. She discusses the effects of chemotherapy on her brain and offers Ingrid a sedative at one point. Characters drink beer, wine and liquor. Fred told a young Martha that he was “high practically all the time” during the war.
Martha asks Ingrid to accompany her to a secluded house where she will take the euthanasia pill and kill herself. Ingrid is understandably stunned by the request but, eventually, agrees to it. As mentioned, this is all illegal in the state of New York, where the film takes place. Therefore, Ingrid must concoct an alibi so the authorities will not arrest her for assisting in Martha’s suicide. Later, Ingrid lies when the police question her about the situation.
Martha and her daughter, Michelle, are estranged. Part of that is because Michelle’s father wasn’t present—even after learning about Martha’s pregnancy, Fred leaves her—and Michelle “couldn’t bear not having a father.” The other part is that Martha seems to have been a neglectful mother, her career having kept her apart from her young daughter much of the time.
Damian also has a difficult relationship with his progeny: He believes his son shouldn’t be having children because of the strain it will put on the Earth. He also rants about climate change, neo-liberalism and the rise of the far right.
The cancer treatments affect Martha’s physical health, and she mentions dealing with diarrhea, vomiting and fatigue.
“Shouldn’t dying people have the right to end their lives with dignity?” Ingrid asks at one point. If The Room Next Door has a thesis statement, that’s it.
But that raises its own question: What is human dignity, and where does it come from? The film tells us that Martha’s life has become “reduced to surviving.” It seems that, according to the filmmakers, dignity is derived from autonomy, being able to do the things you enjoy or perhaps a painless existence. But if that’s true, the concept of dignity stands on fickle and treacherous ground. Would we say those who lack autonomy, who need care, have no dignity? Or that athletes lose their worth the very moment age or injury forces them to leave their competitive professions behind? And we all experience pain in our lives, physical, emotional or otherwise. Does our dignity fade in the face of our anguish?
Of course not.
The truth is that human dignity doesn’t come from a human source. What gives us our dignity is that we are each of us made in the image of God, the Author and Creator of life. That’s something that all humans possess, regardless of our circumstances.
The Room Next Door seeks to put a positive spin on euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide. It does so in an emotionally manipulative matter, just as other euthanasia films such as Million Dollar Baby and Me Before You have likewise done, almost daring viewers to argue that its viewpoint is problematic.
But let’s be very clear, the actions taken here are much different than choosing to halt lifesaving (or life-extending) measures. According to Focus on the Family, physician-assisted suicide “is an intentional act designed to facilitate and hasten death by means of lethal prescription drugs. As such, it represents an alarming and dangerous shift in the ethics of our medical community.”
The Apostle Paul wrote, “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain” (Philippians 1:21) and later, “My desire is to depart [unto death] and be with Christ, for that is far better” (v. 23). Paul did not fear death. He looked forward to the life to come, to join Jesus Christ in eternity. Not as an end to pain or loss of autonomy (though he suffered from his own thorn), but as the fulfillment of God’s eternal promise. And though, as he said, to die would be “far better,” he didn’t hasten his own end despite significant suffering of his own. He knew his dignity was found in God and worked tirelessly to give others that same hope—a hope that could even give purpose to suffering.
The Room Next Door is not without merit. There are some tender moments of friendship to be found here, and Ingrid gives much of herself to comfort her ailing friend. But it soon strays down the wrong path by suggesting that someone should be celebrated for killing herself. Add in several casual conversations about sex including same-sex relationships, some sensuality, drug use and language to a ham-fisted anti-life message, and this is a film that families will likely want to skip.
Bret loves a good story—be it a movie, show, or video game—and enjoys geeking out about things like plot and story structure. He has a blast reading and writing fiction and has penned several short stories and screenplays. He and his wife love to kayak the many beautiful Colorado lakes with their dog.
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