Time for a cigarette! And then inhale deeply, give the heart some space … Finnish director Jukka Kärkkäinen has questioned people in various smoking areas on their life situation. In this manner he documents five vitas, all determined decisively by work, in a hospital, a factory, an old-people’s home and a smoking compartment on board a train, respectively. Now that work is coming to an end, be it due to age or sickness or because Nokia is no longer manufacturing rubber boots, the future is uncertain. And with the continual burning down of cigarettes, the film gains the character of a meditative look back. Simultaneously, the people questioned reflect their situation so intensely that “The Smoking Room“ gains the rank of a societal review. Neither does Kärkkäinen attempt to romanticize smoking, nor does he condemn smokers: “The film is trying to capture the reality of the society; it sees the smoking room as a stage for the deepest ranks of the nation.”