Jasmine Trinca in Honey (Cannes Film Festival)

Unlike the rigorously debated topics of abstinence-only sex education or same-sex marriage, issues which will someday be largely resolved–at least in the courts–and the lingering contention lessened, the subject of mercy killing will likely never arrive at a similar state of moral consensus. With other ideological disputes, once the discussion ends, life will, invariably, go on, but the endgame of the mercy killing debate leads to at least one life that does not.

Italian actress Valeria Golino’s directorial debut, Honey (Miele), poses questions about this taboo topic without ever taking too many steps over either side of the line. Golino understands the irreconcilability of the debate, so instead of preaching to either implacable choir, she submits a deft story that touches on the impact of dying with dignity, both on the patient as well as on those left behind. Because, ultimately when all is said and done, death is suffered by the living.

The film follows Irene (Jasmine Trinca), a young woman living outside of Rome who moonlights as a quasi-drug mule, traveling to Mexico every month to legally purchase dog-euthanizing barbiturates. For a fee, Irene (known to her clients as “Honey”), delivers the drugs to terminally-ill people who desire to die with dignity, outside the suggestion of doctors or the letter of the law. Therefore, Irene’s job remains concealed, not to be shared with her friends, her father, or her married lover. She is alone in her world, except for one intermediary, and those who share her secret are not long for it either.

Golino handily presents a palpable dichotomy between Honey’s distressing life-taking occupation and Irene’s understated lust for living fully. While assisting her patients, she maintains a focused, professional demeanor while simultaneously offering a softer, solicitous side when assuring them that they can change their minds at any time. Honey takes no pleasure in facilitating their deaths.

Outside of work, Irene’s life is colored by an intrinsic desire to make the most of it. The director’s casual inclusion of everyday occurrences–young girls giggling on the train, men carrying surfboards across the beach, Irene’s evocative flirtation with a stranger at a nightclub–are all heightened by the inescapable anguish of Honey’s death-dealing vocation. And even when Irene seems to find moments of relief, recurring shots of planes flying overhead are a maddening reminder of the duties to which she must inevitably return.

Honey’s burdensome task is further muddled when she discovers that one of her clients, Mr. Grimaldi (Carlo Cecchi), is not terminally ill, but simply bored with life and apathetically suicidal. She becomes determined to recover the drugs before he is able to kill himself, leading to an evolving relationship in which Honey is finally able to find some release from the pressures of her work. She and Grimaldi develop a smarting repartee, through which they discuss the imbalanced rights of the sick and the healthy, the vexation of contemporary idiocy, and the underrated value of ugliness.

The discussions are thoughtful and the sense of relief that Honey–and eventually, Irene–accesses is wholly tangible, but the chemistry and believability of her relationship with Grimaldi is where the film comes slightly undone. It’s a shame that the crux of the film is what is least striking about it. Everything else makes for an introspective thought-piece. The subtly striking performance from Trinca resonates, and the film is lensed with casually breathtaking cinematography. But maybe that’s Golino’s point. We can acquire innumerable scientific facts or faith-based beliefs to develop our arguments only so far. In the end, the impact of mercy killing is unknowable until after the final breath has been taken.