Review: 'Eternity' presents a comic afterlife you wouldn't want to visit, with people you wouldn't want to hang out with forever

If, as the makers of the comedy-drama “Eternity” imagine it, I will get to choose one place to go after I die, I would not choose to spend my afterlife in the scenario depicted in this emotionally unbalanced movie — and certainly not with the shrill, plastic character we spend time with here.

When we meet Larry and Joan Cutler, they’ve been married for 65 years (played by Barry Primus and Betty Buckley), and seem to be in a perpetual conversation that is dominated by griping, complaining and bickering. However, it’s also clear they love each other greatly, with Larry tending to Joan as she’s going through cancer treatments.

At a gender-reveal party for one of their grandchildren, Larry chokes on a pretzel and dies. When he realizes what’s going on, he’s on a train headed to a way station for the afterlife. He’s also now played by Miles Teller, as it’s explained that when people die, their physical form reverts to the time in life when they were happiest — which is why, as Larry’s “afterlife consultant,” Anna (Da’Vine Joy Randolph), explains, the afterlife has a lot of 10-year-old children and very few teen-agers.

Anna tells Larry that he has one week to choose from the variety of eternities available — which are pitched in an exhibition hall like commercial goods at a trade expo. When Larry says he doesn’t want to decide until Joan arrives, Anna tells him he’ll have to get a job in this limbo, so he does. One person he befriends is Luke (Callum Turner), who’s been tending bar in this station for 67 years.

Joan dies shortly after Larry, so she (now played by Elizabeth Olsen) soon arrives at the station, where her afterlife coordinator, Ryan (John Early), has been waiting eagerly to meet her. The reason for Ryan’s eagerness is that he knows what Larry doesn’t: That Luke is no mere bartender, but Joan’s first husband, who died in the Korean War and has been waiting for her all this time.

Joan is now faced not only with the choice of which eternity to live in, but which husband she might pick to share it with. And Larry and Luke’s childish behavior toward each other doesn’t make Joan’s choice any easier.

Director David Freyne and his co-writer, Patrick Cunnane (a former speechwriter for President Barack Obama), land some substantial laughs setting up the terms and conditions for the afterlife — where one can choose to spend eternity in idealized versions of 1840s Ireland or 1960s Paris, or something called “Man Free World” (which is fully booked, but the expansion is coming soon). They’re less successful as they try to define these characters or sketch out the plot mechanics as they navigate an eternal love triangle.

Too much of “Eternity” depends on the charisma of the three leads, which they have in abundance. The most engaging of the three is Olsen, who brings a post-death sense of liberation to Joan — someone who, finally, gets to do what she wants rather than what’s expected of her. One hopes Joan eventually chooses an afterlife that’s not so regimented and nitpick.

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‘Eternity’

★★1/2

Opens Wednesday, November 26, in theaters everywhere. Rated PG-13 for sexual content and some strong language. Running time: 112 minutes.