Director: David Freyne
Cast: Miles Teller, Elizabeth Olsen, Callum Turner, Da’Vine Joy Randolph
Have I Seen It Before: Nope. The thought of getting away from the White Christmas (1954) of it all from a few hours to take in a new movie feels like the peak of luxury.
Did I Like It: The films flaws and strengths appear to be divisible from one another, so I suppose that adds up to something of a recommendation.
While having Larry (Teller, but Barry Primus as an old man) die by choking on a pretzel feels relatable to the point of panic, Joan’s (Olsen, but Betty Buckley as an old woman) situation is murky to the point of needing to be the way that it is simply so the story won’t wallow in its first act. She is clearly sick, doesn’t want to tell her family, but is apparently so sick that she’s destined to die within a week of the film’s beginning. I spent far too much time trying to work that out in my head, so much so that I fear some of the film’s other pleasures might have passed me by. I’m struck by the realization that this found early life of The Black List, and while it is quite a bit better than the roughly similar A Big Bold Beautiful Journey (2025) I start to wonder if that’s the mark of a quality scrip that it once was.
The film follows all of the modern rules of drama, where the solution or mechanism for the solution to the plot are tagged so thoroughly in the first half of the film, I had everything pretty much figured out. Add to that the fact that it is, at its core, a romantic comedy, and the film may never have had a chance to surprise me with its story.
But enough about what didn’t work. While the conceit of a recognizably earth-bound afterlife has been played through in Defending Your Life (1991) and The Good Place, the film manages to mine a goodly amount of humor out of its barrage of advertisements for potential eternal choices. Something about “Weimar World” (now with 100% fewer Nazis!) had me howling in a way I’d prefer not to analyze in the winter of 2025. I even found myself isolating what choices I might make, with early favorites being Spy World or Space World, assuming I have the option to me among the less corny iterations of such a fantasy.
The performances raise the entire film to an enjoyable time, though. Randolph knows how to play this type of role, and could do so in her sleep. She can also stretch her talents, like she did in The Holdovers (2023), but there’s nothing wrong with her batting one out that’s a gimme. Olsen is the film’s not-so-secret-weapon, though. She plays Joan always as someone who’s genuinely bedraggled by the impossible choice at the film’s core, but she always feels like an older woman inhabiting a younger form. Had neither of those qualities been pulled off, the script may have unravelled under its own weaknesses.
