Typically Ondi Timoner works with a bigger canvas than she does in “The Inn Between,” with the director of the decade-spanning “Dig!” and the globe-trotting “Cool It” spending a mere four seasons at the Salt Lake City-based hospice of the title which was founded as the only care facility of its kind to offer end-of-life and recuperative care to the unhoused beginning in 2014. At a concise 71 minutes, it may be one of her smallest films in scale as she follows a handful of patients at the center, but when approaching people with an unusually open heart and mind has always been a part of her gift for filmmaking, the film also feels like one of her most expansive as it becomes a moving survey of a collection of people expecting their days to be numbered upon entering after difficult lives on the street and revived at least in a spiritual sense when treated with dignity.
It seems fair to suspect that Timoner was led to the Inn Between some time around the making of her previous film “Last Flight Home,” where the filmmaker captured what would be her father’s final days as her family resigned themselves to his wish to end his life, but whereas that film was designed to lead you up to death’s door, “The Inn Between” moves away from it pretty quickly. That isn’t to say it ignores the likelihood that most at the Utah facility can’t expect to live anywhere else after they’ve checked in, but Timoner finds a place where people who have literally been left to the curb have become more active and engaged upon their arrival, with day trips to car shows and the local planetarium gradually restoring a lust for life among the residents and many end up getting involved in the operations of the facility, finally having the wherewithal to look after others when having to tend to their own needs consumed so much of their time and energy.
Almost immediately “The Inn Between” introduces the best-case scenario for one of its former tenants in Kimberly, a death doula who once had a 10 percent expectation of survival due to heat problems that were eventually resolved during her time living at the Inn Between and she dutifully attends to those living there now, a motley group that includes Mark and Mike, a pair of twins, Paul, a former heroin addict who was left homeless by a particularly devastating divorce, Amos, a one-time gang member who rebuilt his life only to see it all come apart at the seams when he lost his job at Chevron during the pandemic, and Patti, a notoriously tough customer who showed up to the hospice nearly deaf and blind with a host of tumors and after workers at other facilities couldn’t believe that the Inn Between took her on, she appears to be on the mend.
Timoner has never been one to polish rough edges, either from her subjects who don’t sugarcoat the hard lives they’ve led or the general aesthetic in which they’re presented, and in the case of “The Inn Between,” grace is allowed to emerge naturally because of how the film is structured where the institution truly appears to be a reflection of the people it’s made up of. The director wisely holds back on much of its history until a visit from former Salt Lake City mayor Ben McAdams midway through the film when he’s given a tour of the place and rather than hear from its supervising staff, the residents are clearly given preference to share their stories, showing how they’ve contributed as much to the feeling there as those that have set up such a welcoming environment, giving them a sense of purpose as crucial as any hospitality that they’re shown to ease their minds.
While “The Inn Between” may concern the fragility of life, it isn’t in the way you necessarily expect from its start when an end is inevitable, but the experience of the residents who fell on hard times looks to be far more arbitrary and precipitous as one bad break follows another. Surprises may have a negative connotation for those at the hospice as a result, but Timoner shows how they can be positive too when there’s more empathy out there than they might expect and showing the same level of compassion as she’s depicting, the director creates a space to be appreciated in full.
“The Inn Between” will screen again at the Woodstock Film Festival on October 19th at 6:15 pm at the Orpheum Theatre 1 at Upstate Films in Saugerties.