‘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.  

* Addendum on 31 July 2026:

Whoever rummages YouTube for the original ‘The Most Beautiful Exit’ 3-min film shall find an error message instead: ‘Video unavailable’. But on 24 October 2022, when it was published one day after its protagonist Jennyfer Hatch had an assisted death, the video opened with an empty hospital bedroom and Hatch’s voice-over: ‘Dying in a hospital is not what’s natural, that’s not what’s... soft. In these kind of moments, you need softness’. The sibilance of ‘softness’ merges with the sound of gentle waves, as the camera zooms out of the room – which turns out to be only a diorama box being carried away by the sea. The text ‘SIMONS PRESENTS’ fades in, announcing the title. An ethereal synth then plays repetitive arpeggios that match the alternating circular scenes: spirals Hatch draws on sand, a choir surrounding her, bubbles, friends around a table, a dance circle… Throughout, Hatch voices her life testimony of seeking beauty up to the very end, concluding that ‘seeing the rhythms of what’s gonna keep going after I’m gone... bring a lot of comfort’. From a birds-eye view, the waves start to erase the spirals on the beach, as a dedication appears: ‘FOR JENNYFER / JUNE 1985 - OCTOBER 2022’, followed by ‘All / Is / Beauty’ and the company logo. Since the video was removed, few sources remain to access it: social-media accounts that reshared clips first aired on TV; the case study prepared by the agency Broken Heart Love Affair (BHLA), that produced the video; and Wayback Machine, which archived the complete video once it went viral. The different versions multiplied the interpretations of form and function: What is this? And why was it made? Even the creators didn’t seem to agree: Peter Simons, heir of the family business, said ‘it’s obviously not a commercial campaign’, and BHLA’s strategy officer Jay Chaney called it ‘more of a statement piece’, while the agency’s creative officer Craig McIntosh stated ‘this wasn’t really a film per se’ but ‘an experience that we did for Jennyfer and her close group of friends’. The Message underscored the contradiction between ‘not a commercial’ and a branded video created by an ad agency: ‘While the campaign’s message is meant to be about beauty in life, the decision to focus on a woman choosing to end her life could raise questions about assisted dying and why a brand is running advertising about it’.