‘All is Beauty/The Most Beautiful Exit’ by Simons

The short film, created by brand agency Broken Heart Love Affair, was promoted by Simons, a Canadian retailer. Visually close to an art film, it depicts in a dream-like way the final days of a woman’s life, prior to her choosing to receive a medically assisted death. Jennyfer Hatch, the protagonist, is shown with her friends near the ocean, focusing on beauty, nature, music and connection, prior to her ‘sacred last breaths.’ ‘Even now, as I seek help to end my life, with all the pain, in these final moments there is still so much beauty,’ Hatch says. She died using MAID in October 2022, age 37. 

The branded content – which garnered over 1 million views on Simon’s YouTube page – was initially seen as an unsettling engagement with a topic that is not normally discussed publicly by a clothing brand, that is a profit-making enterprise. But shortly after it aired, a news report revealed that Jennyfer Hatch had anonymously testified about her lack of access to proper treatment for Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, a rare and painful condition, and how this impacted her desire to live; ‘it is far easier to let go than to keep on fighting,’ she was quoted as saying. The idea that her life could have been improved and potentially saved with better care resonated in the context of increased scrutiny of Canada’s rising number of MAID applications, alongside the health system’s inability to provide the care she needed. The ‘pro-euthanasia’ ad was subsequently removed from the company's promotional material and criticized both because of its glorification of assisted suicide, as well as its failure to take into account Jennyfer Hatch’s wider context.