Directed by David Freyne | Written by Freyne and Patrick Cunnane | ▲▲▲ | In Cinemas

A whimsical drama in the tradition of afterlife examinations like It’s A Wonderful Life or Heaven Can Wait, Eternity is a pleasant surprise.

An elderly couple, Larry and Joan (Barry Primus and Betty Buckley) who’ve been together for 65 years die within a week of each other and meet up again at the Junction, which is an afterlife hotel, convention centre, and transit hub where people get a week to decide where they’d like to spend eternity, and with whom. The convention floor is full of stalls offering very specific afterlives — from Paris World to Men Free World to Studio 54 World — which is hilarious in a Westworld sort of way,  though it makes you wonder who loves one way of life so much they wouldn’t want a little variety for the rest of forever.

Larry and Joan are now played in much younger forms by Miles Teller and Elizabeth Olsen — when you arrive at the Junction you always arrive in the body you had when you were happiest. Complicating things is Luke (Callum Turner). He’s Joan’s first husband, who died young, and he’s been waiting for her for 65 years, tending bar at the Junction, hoping when she arrives she’ll spend the rest of time with him. Also there to help is Da’Vine Joy Randolph as Larry’s helpful Afterlife Coordinator, and John Early as Joan’s.

The film has that bright technicolor glow of a 1960s sitcom. It’s pointedly, proudly old-fashioned, but that’s not necessarily a criticism — there’s something undeniably heartwarming about it. There are jokes about squats, like it’s out of the I Love Lucy playbook.

So, how is Joan going to choose between the young, passionate love with Luke and the longtime but bickering love she shared with Larry?  I often say that the best movies deliver the ending the audience didn’t know it wanted. Eternity isn’t quite that sophisticated because we all know who we want her to end up with, but the way the movie gets to that inevitability is the joy of the thing.