Muriel Donnelly (SPOILER WITHIN)

I think that she does both - quits and then dies ...

There are four clues to this :

The first is when she comes out of the Doctor's Office, looking very downcast ...
I think that she's been told that she doesn't have long to live.

The second is in her voiceover narration, when she says "in the last months of my life I co-managed a Hotel ..."

The third is the whole concept of her long narrative letter ... this is in lieu of saying Goodbye

The fourth is that she leaves a letter in the office for Sonny to find - I think that she resigns, so that he can find a replacement for her in an orderly manner ...

C.

It's very much implied that Muriel is suffering from something that gives her only a matter of time to live, as evidenced by her reaction when leaving the doctors and her mood throughout the film.

I was ready to shed some tears at the inevitable death scene, but I was quite glad it ended the way it did!

One gathers that the doctor has given her bad news, but exactly what is never explained, nor why nothing is being done about it.

Am I the only one who felt like she was planning to commit suicide that day, or at least soon after the wedding? There were several hints at this, and in the closing shot of the film she has this look of both relief and fear simultaneously. It seemed like she had been diagnosed with something fatal and painful, so she'd rather die with dignity on her own terms.

to me it was obvious she was dying considering how she looked when coming out of the doctors office. but i wonder why she would leave rather than die in a place she enjoyed being in?

I suspected that she had been having something in her tea each day and that on her final day it was going to be a very strong dose. It was the way she said "thank you" and "goodbye" so gently to the maid. Also the reason the reason the maid spilt the tea when the Inspector (lady) asked if she could have some. Muriel would definitely want to die with dignity and on her own terms.



I'm the Doctor. I'm a Time Lord. I'm from the planet Gallifrey in the Constellation of Kasterborous.

I kept feeling like Muriel was planning on ending her life. The end scene of her sitting on the wall of the building had me expecting her to just fall back and plunge to her death. it was very odd for her to sit there and the camera does a wide shot which is when I thought she was going fall back.