The afterlife isn't a new subject for movies. Albert Brooks tried his hand at it in 1991 with Defending Your Life, and we've seen other big-screen journeys into the beyond. Consider Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941), It's a Wonderful Life (1946) Heaven Can Wait (1978) or the 1943 version, The Sixth Sense (1999), make your own list.
Now, David Freyne (Dating Amber) plunges into the life to come with Eternity, a clever movie that's good in the setup, amusing in its midsection, and overextended in its final act. Generosity lands me on the positive side of the ledger.
When Larry (Miles Teller) dies, he awakens in a crowded junction surrounded by faceless apartment buildings. He's told that his understandable confusion will be addressed by his personal AC (Afterlife Coordinator).
If the late Larry immediately saw his reflection, he might not recognize himself. The recently departed arrive in the afterlife at the age at which they were the happiest during their lives.
They then must pick the place where they will spend eternity, choosing from an array of choices that are presented as if they were theme park attractions: Famine Free Ireland or Weimar World, a happy German romp that's free of Nazis. Those addicted to nicotine can choose cancer-free Smokers' World. Others prefer beaches or mountains.
The catch: The choice, once made, is irrevocable.
No wonder, then, that Larry tells his AC (DaVine Joy Randolph) that he wants to defer his decision on where to spend eternity until the terminally ill wife he left behind (Elizabeth Olsen) arrives. He can't imagine eternity without her.
The now youthful Larry -- he was in his 70s when he died -- tries to learn the ropes of afterlife living, if that's not too weird a contradiction in terms, but it doesn't take long for Olsen's Joan to turn up.
Larry's exhilarated until he learns that Joan's first husband, Luke (Callum Turner), a young man who was killed during the Korean War, has been waiting for her as well. Luke has spent 65 years pining for the woman he never had a chance to mature with.
What's Joan to do?
That's pretty much the movie.
Freyne offers comedy and sentiment along the way while differentiating between two kinds of love. Luke represents heart-throb, head-over-heels ardor. Larry's more of an endurance guy; he understands what it takes to build a long marriage and raise two children.
Temperamentally different, the two men find themselves at odds. Luke has charm; Larry indulges in cranky complaining.
The supporting cast includes Olga Merediz in a nice turn as one of Joan's former friends. Her ideal happy age turns out to be 72, the time when she finally came out as gay.
A screenplay credited to Freyne and Pat Cunnae includes additional invention, notably a hall of mirrors in which each of the major characters watches key scenes from the past.
Too bad, Freyne has trouble sticking the landing, which means that the film's charm runs out before the final credits roll. Maybe it was inevitable that a film titled Eternity would have trouble ending.
Films such as Eternity demand healthy suspensions of disbelief. Throughout, the dead are told that ironclad rules govern their choices. Trying to switch eternities, for example, will throw one into a never-ending void. But what's the good of rules if they can't occasionally be broken?
Oh well, if Eternity has trouble letting go of these characters, so be it. There are enough smiles along the way to snuff out reservations.
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