ROMANTIC COMEDY; 1hr 52min
STARRING: Miles Teller, Elizabeth Olsen, Callum Turner, Da’Vine Joy Randolph, John Early
Death becomes them: from left, Olsen, Teller and Turner
How reassuring would it be if the afterlife initially presented as a giant train station, equipped with trade fair–style booths that spruik a smorgasbord of tempting forever options? Smokers World! (“Because cancer can’t kill you twice.”) Studio 54 World! Man-Free World! (That particular one is full.) The myriad alternatives are all over the map in director David Freyne’s sumptuously packaged trip to paradise. Whatever your spiritual beliefs, being dead has never looked so tempting.
As an added plus, when your forever train pulls in, you arrive at your optimal age. And so it is that after Larry (Barry Primus) chokes to death on a pretzel in his 80s, he comes to as his studly 35-year-old self (Teller). A second stab at 30-something is extremely good news, likewise Larry’s personal Afterlife Coordinator, Anna (Randolph). A shot of sunshine wrapped in a bracing breeze, Anna fills Larry in on the hereafter drill from the comfort of his high-rise hotel room. What this boils down to is that once his next world choice is made, which he has seven days to do, the decision will be permanent.
This huge deal is made even more monumental when, after succumbing to cancer, Larry’s adored wife, Joan (Betty Buckley is older Joan, Olsen and her radiant smile the younger model), shows up with her own hands-on AC (Early). To Larry’s dismay, young Joan is closely followed by her infuriatingly chiselled first husband, Luke (Turner). A former soldier who died in Korea, Luke has been waiting for Joan in this commercialised limbo for a staggering 67 years. Larry and Joan, on the other hand, have been married for 65 of them. Which of the two aggro contenders should she choose? To smooth this impossible process, Joan is given a dispensational spin with each contender through his particular paradise, which, if you think about it, would have to be its own unhinged version of hell.
Although tackling an almighty topic, Freyne and co-writer Pat Cunnane are dab hands with snappy dialogue, while their cast rocks and rumbles as one. The metaphysical fun and games cruise like a dream through a minefield of crises. Still, there’s no denying that forever is a serious business. Its choices can’t help but be spring-loaded with regret — as much for the decisions we actually made as for those that got away.
