Next Exit

I really liked this film. It's mis marketed and they didn't need to drum up some crazy sci fi angle at all. The acting and character development was enough for me.

I notice a lot of movies like "Smile" deal with trauma based subject matter and the deep parts of the mind that are affected by it. But they have to hook you with gimmicks instead. They didn't need that here.

The acting is really good, the ghost aspect is confusing but I think that should have been the premise not the sci-go angle. Either way it's a good film. I really was into it at the end and I've personally dealt with similar problems so it impacts me more.

Either way go into it not with sci-fi lens, but instead a humanist drama. Enjoy! 7/10.

... which is never make a promise to the audience that you can't deliver on. The first 3 minutes of this film sets up a premise so outrageously compelling that it would not surprise me if another film-maker grabs it and makes a proper movie about it down the road. However, and this is the point, Mali Elfman, the first-time Director of Next Exit, does nothing with it. Just sort of leaves it hanging, a constant reminder for the audience of what this movie could have been. That said, this is a not-bad road movie, and a so-so rom-com, but any attempt to call this science fiction is stretching it. The kind of film where, if you were flying NY to London, you might get hooked somewhere over the Atlantic. Maybe. And, oh yeah. Elfman has this really weird talent for repeatedly miscasting former model Karen Gillan (of Dr Who fame). Elfman produced THE PARTY IS JUST BEGINNING, 2018, where Gillan was so off-character it seemed as though she was deliberately trying to implode her own career. In this film, she is barely recognizable. ((Designated "IMDb Top Reviewer." Please check out my list "167+ Nearly-Perfect Movies (with the occasional Anime or TV miniseries) you can/should see again and again (1932 to the present))

I didn't really think this was going to be a good film seeing as the premis presented wasn't interesting or groundbreaking at all, but I found it to be a very good story about being desperate and to try find a way out of a horrible mental situation where the two protagonist is willing to basically commit suicide to be "part of something great", or to be able to talk with dead relatives. It's a really emotional rollercoaster that is worth watching.

The characters is really written good and they meet themself in the door as one might day. Totally worth watching, just ignore the whole storyline with ghost and whatnot it's more of a metaphor I feel than anything.

Do not expect aliens, monsters, scientific theories or thrilling action scenes. Yes, the movie begins with a wonderful sci-fi premise - similar to those in Kurt Vonnegut tales - that life after death is real (for some people), but this is not a ghost thriller. However, like all great sci-fi from Frankenstein to The Thing to Hellboy to Avatar, this movie explores the issues of "the nature of human life' and "what is it that haunts us." It is a slow burn, ok, but it fills the slow spaces with realistic, natural humor. The acting is superb. The directing and script are compelling. The pay-off at the end is satisfying. You don't even need the "sci-fi premise," because everyday my true-believer Christian friends try to convince me that the afterlife is real. So, I ask ... why not die and move on to "the better place?" I enjoyed seeing these characters trying to explore their reasons for dying and their reasons for living. I can't give it a 7, but it deserves more than a 6. I was pleasantly surprised and impressed by this one.

While it may be a mediocre existential drama it has almost nothing to do with sci-fi or mystery.

They say the journey is more important than the destination, yet in this case the journey was slow burning and boring just as the destination.

I was hoping this movie would be more in the realm of McDowell's "The Discovery". But it was not. This theme has already been exploited in many movies and TV shows so why they chose the sci-fi platform to tell a simple story that contained no exceptional emotional charge or identification with the protagonists is beyond me.

This is not a bad fim (drama), but also not a good one. For some reason I expected far more.